In the reflection by their side
by Thecricketsarecalling
Summary: The events of part 4 changed, with the dream warriors fighting along side with the dream master.
1. The dream warriors

Kristen tried to take deep breaths. She stared with her big wide blue eyes around the darkened basement, which smelled of moldy water and stale fear. For the past three weeks she had been dreaming of "the house" again. Thoughts that she had tried her best to out behind her these past thirteen months of her life. She knew the memories would never go away, neither would a dream like this from time to time…but lately it had been happening far so much, and she was getting scared.

Standing in her torn night gown, which she often wore to bed on warm May nights much like this one, she shivered in cold from the pounding ice laced rain which had fallen on her moments before. She cursed herself for going inside this place of the dammed, but she knew like so many times before she was drawn to it.

Looking around with her heart pounding in her chest, she took another breath before licking her lips. She hadn't felt this kind of fear in so long, and this time it felt closer then ever.

She spun around from the sound of scraping claws against metal, a sound she remembered drifting off so many nights and she froze with fear.

"Joey! Kincaid! help me!"

Her voice rang through the echoed darkness, she heard sound of glass and backed up again, then a loud banging came over head. Looking upward she watched as poor Kincaid dressed in his black night sweats came crashing through one of the empty pipes, landing flat into a greasy puddle of muck and dirt. She jumped back, still frozen in fear but at the same time wanting to hold back nervous laughter, somehow every time Kincaid came in with her he came in the hard way.

Taking a few moments to adjust himself around the surrounds, he took one look around the boiler room as water from an above pipe dripped in his eyes and flashed angered eyes at her.

"Awww shit, Kristen, not again... "

Kristen felt ashamed, she held her arms together as gooseflesh broke out and looked down at her soiled bare feet, feeling at the same time better that big strong and tough Kincaid was with her.

"I'm sorry Kincaid…"

Kincaid got standing, dusting himself off and shook his head.

"Sorry, man you are one spooked chick…"

She tried to smile up at him, flashing those puppy dog eyes that had worked so many times before, instead they heard yet another screeching noise from further behind, right away Kristen held onto Kincaid's arms and told him to Shhh.

Both froze waiting, she felt her heart beat start to race faster against the strong pulse she felt inside her friend's arm. Both stood there when an arm reached forward and touched her on the shoulder, making her spin around and almost scream. Kincaid also spun but right away hid his fear by crossing his arms and acting his role as the rough guy like always.

Joey stood there.

Kristen had so many memories of these two that it hurt her, she almost broke out crying with joy as he just stood there underneath a group of rusting chains with a very disappointed and pissed off look on his face.

"Joey, thank God for a minute I thought…"

"Thought what? Of dragging us in here?"

Hearing Joey's voice still rang almost to a strange level to her ears. Even if she only knew him for a few weeks before everything happened, it almost seemed like a true miracle that after he had woken from his coma when the doctors discovered them all moments later almost now a year ago…that his voice was restored, almost like a final gift.

"Yeah, cut it out. You're puttin' a dent in my beauty sleep."

Kincaid joined Joey, both standing side by side, still dressed for bed in sweats and T-shirts. Looking at the two of them together made her feel both ashamed and not as scared as she was moments ago. It seemed now that their life's were finally restoring back to what seemed as normal as they could get, time like this became less and less.

She remembered shortly after the investigation had been put forth to Western Hills, that the ones that had survived weren't even allowed in court, they weren't even agreed to be released until the month later…from that time onward they were kept in private areas of the hospital without any guests or seeing each other.

That time was a joyful, but at the same time terrifying time for them…so Kristen dreamed every night and took them with her. Now the dreams weren't bad anymore…in fact they were almost better then reality. So much to the point they knew they would have to slow down once they were released since they might become hooked like a drug of some sort. But for the short time that it happened they were happy. Nights Kristen would dream of them in different locations, sometimes on a warm sunny day, others just together and taking, joking and feeling like a family…or more of a better word…a team.

Their parents really looked down on the fact of them all hanging out together, so between starting high school again, and trying to pick up the empty pieces that were once left of their life's to become normal healthy teenagers, they seemed to have drifted apart. It hurt Kristen, but she knew she was one of the most to blame. In this short year things had gotten a lot better. She still saw her shrink twice a week, but she had a new boyfriend, a best friend, school, and almost new gang to hang out with, a group that didn't know about her past, nor her power.

Joey and Kincaid had done well for themselves to. They were kind of popular in their own way, and both seemed as involved into the school sports then anyone else could be. But still somehow they was that castled strange glow that drifted along with them. Rumors were always around and she knew that the only reason those two stayed so close was because as much as they tried to put on the act that it was all over with, and that it was time to start living like normal people and stop pulling them in, she knew the truth, they were warriors much like herself. They knew there would always be another fight.

But being together like they had been so many times before in the past, where they felt the safest, she was scared and needed them.

"It's Freddy…I heard him."

She said with an uneven voice, looking up at the dark ceilings.

"Freddy's dead, buried, and consecrated. We won, remember?

For some strange unknown reason she felt close to tears, never before in so long had she felt this scared…even with them together to protect her.

"He's coming back for us…"

"Kincaid's right, Fred Krueger is history, c'mere…"

Joey came over to her side, taking her by the wrist, maybe not knowing his own strength as he placed her shaken hand onto the door of the open boiler…he was right, it was cold.

He looked at her with his wide brown eyes before she turned around, still shaking from the insides.

She stared at her two friends.

"I don't know…"

Just then without another movement, something jumped out from the darkness of the boiler, so fast Kristen didn't have time to react. It flung her down with all it's strength knocking her down to the ground before a stinging pain went through the flesh of her arm before warmth came.

In a start Joey woke up, sitting straight up still dressed from the night before. Gasping for air he looked around blinding and found himself back in his room, thin day light leaked through his red blinds behind his dresser and stereo. Looking around again unsure he felt the sloshing of his waterbed from underneath him go back and forth like crazy. Taking another second he felt his heart race and sweat pour down his forehead.

He was safe…it was just a dream.

Looking around at his bedroom, covered in rock posters, and sports awards he won over the past very busy year he looked around remembering Kincaid's dog.

He shut his eyes with relief before his hear his mother's cracked voice call him down for breakfast.

He was okay…he was sure of it.

Moments later he made it down the stairs of his house, almost with a little spring in his step. He still felt pretty shaken from the night before but felt all the better that it was just one of Kristen's crazy dreams.

Shaking his head he made it to the kitchen where his mother was dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt cooking eggs. His father, dressed for work read the newspaper at the table.

"Joey eat your breakfast before it gets cold…"

Joey slid by his mother who lately seemed in a mood with him. But the good enough thing was since he had been released from the hospital his father had taken him under his wing in a strange sort of way. He seemed happy everything that had happened was behind them and he now had an all American sport's playing young teenage son.

Joey liked to make his father proud, but still felt a sick bitter taste whenever he thought back on the year before.

Sitting down and starting on his breakfast his mother turned around with a plate of toast and sat down herself.

"You didn't get out of those clothes all night?"

She lifted an eyebrow as Joey munched on his bacon and shrugged.

"Guess I was tried."

Joey's father smiled putting down the newspaper for a moment before smiling at his son.

"Just getting into summer mood huh son?"

Joey tried to smile before getting up and pushing his chair aside.

His mother gave a look and pointed.

"Rodger look he hasn't even touched his food…"

"Leave him alone Jan, he has to get going for school."

Joey didn't want to spend another second going back between to two, heading upstairs he washed up and got changed in a hurry before heading out the back door to his car.

For his last birthday his father had brought him a Z28, a pretty sharp car which Joey took care with over all his pride and joy. He was sure that it was yet another gift his father bought him to almost make up for the two empty lost ones before. But he knew he wasn't spoiled, he was pushed by both his parents and he sure as hell knew there were other kids at Springwood High with faster and much better cars…Kincaid seemed to think otherwise.

Jumping into the driver's seat, dressed in his jean jacket, sweater somehow due to the warm early morning heat and jeans, he brushed his hair away from his face and looked in the rearview mirror before backing out.

The drive to school was pleasant, he seemed to almost forget about what happened the night before when he picked Kincaid up at his house three blocks down. The rest of the ride he turned up his radio to almost block out Kincaid's bitches and moans about what a pain in the ass Kristen was becoming. Before he knew it he pulled into the crowed parking-lot.


	2. a little day dream

At the same exact time Joey pulled into the parking-lot, Kristen had too. She was driving a very pricy jeep her mother had bought her and carted her wise cracking boyfriend Rick and his twin sister Alice along with her.

Rick and her were going steady and somehow his quirky outlook on life was just what she seemed to need moving forward in life. He knew about her trouble before and what had happened at the hospital…but the most she would leave it to was that there were some pretty messed up kids who needed help, and sad enough only a few were saved.

There were no more questions after that, and Kristen felt thankful. She was now part of their group and was enjoying life at every moment. Rick seemed to be her soul mate, and Alice the shy poor mistreated sister she never had.

Alice was helped out of the back of Kristen's jeep and held her books almost like a shield against her developing chest. Alice always seemed in the shadow of Rick and Kristen. Both had been dating for almost a year now and she never seemed so thankful in her life that she had met such a kind friend. The past few years had been tough at her house. Between mom dying and dad's drinking she had almost become the keeper of the house and felt as if her only escape were through her daydreams.

She knew she was lucky to have her brother and friends, but somehow being the mousy shy girl that she was, she loved any moment she had to day dream. Sometimes she dreamed about finally telling off her dad, other times she dreamed she was as sexy or as popular as Kristen or Debbie. Bust most of the times…they were about him.

She watched as he parked his car across the crowed lot, she smiled faintly as he stretched, shoving his keys in his back pocket and then walking away with that friend of his.

She had only met him a couple of times through Kristen, but since he seemed in his own little group with that friend of his, her crowd seemed to stay away.

She had asked Kristen about him from time to time when Rick wasn't around to cast judgment, and all Kristen could say was he went down as one of her closest friends, even if they didn't see each other as much as they did before. Alice knew all about her so call stay at Western Hills, which all the adults seemed to look down on, but she was curious about him and wanted to know as much as she could.

Kristen asked if she had any ideas going on in that head of hers, and every time Alice would blush and tell her she just wanted to know. And like every time like before Kristen would tell her as sweet as it sounded it might not be such a hot idea.

She loved Kristen like a sister but at times it seemed to her she worried a little too much about Alice's well being and didn't want her to get to close to this so called friend she cared so much about.

Rick thought he was a freak.

But she knew as much as she could about him. He lived on Marquette street, which was five blocks away from her house. He drove a Z28 and every Friday when she had American History she could see him and that friend of his ditch class and drive off in it.

He came to the diner only once in a while, last time was almost a month ago with his baseball team came in for a pizza…Debbie took their orders but Alice caught herself watching him sitting at the booths laughing along with his other friends.

Debbie said he was cute in a strange dork kind of way, but she never told anyone else about her crush.

She knew he played baseball and hockey, and was a pretty good student, they had the same English class too…that was the only time she got to see him the most.

English was only three times a week, but he sat further towards the back with that friend. It wasn't a really big class to talk in, in fact all they did was tests and worksheets, so the only chance she did have was in the morning when everyone sat down, but he was always busying taking to someone else.

She caught herself staring from time to time, always noticing he was always day dreaming, staring out the window, flicking his pen against his hand. She talked to him once while passing out papers, he smiled before taking it and said.

"Thanks…"

Then went back to talking to his friend. Alice never thought she could smile so much in her life…she never even made real eye contact with him before.

Another time when she was waiting up at the teacher's desk to talk about a quiz grade she got he happened to walk up at the exact time as she did.

He stood right beside her and eyed her paper.

"What did you get?"

Alice remembered gulping and showing him.

"78...you?"

He smiled and flashed her his paper.

"Wish I could say the same."

She gave a nervous laugh and then the bell rang before they could even share another set of words.

She was also was hanging by Shelia's locker earlier this year when to much to her surprise his locker was right beside hers. He pulled it open and got some books out, looking in a hurry as Shelia kept going on and on about the latest trig quiz when he seemed to juggle his books the wrong way and one went spinning to the floor. Almost like an reaction she kneeled down smiling as he did so too and picked it up handing it to him.

He looked at her and smiled.

"Sorry about that."

Alice tried to speak but always smiled like an idiot.

Both stood up at the same time looking at each other as he brushed his hair away from his face.

"Your Kristen's friend right?"

Alice nodded, wishing to God she could speak.

"You making it out to the game tomorrow night?"

Before she could answer, wide eyed, one of his friends came running down the hallway and slapped him on the shoulder, almost making Alice jump back.

His friend was laughing and told him some fight was going on in the parking-lot, and before anything else happened he turned and ran with his friend, leaving Alice standing there all alone.

She noticed his locker was still open, sighing she went to shut it when she noticed something.

A photograph…before she could reach in and look at it Shelia told her they were gonna be late for class.

Since then nothing.

She followed his games, and tried her best to spot him in the crowd, but somehow she knew this wasn't just a crush…the only people she day dreamed the most about were her mother, her father in a negative way, and him. That had to be special.

Just as Debbie started to squash a bug that had happened to have fallen into her breakfast bag of greasy chips, she gazed off for a moment and had a little day dream, spacing out from the loud ring of the bell for classes to start.

She saw herself standing with her friends and he happened to walk by them, books under one arm as he talked to his friend Kincaid.

He glanced at her before walking past and smiled.

"Hi Alice…"

He smiled again, she smirked back before her name rang again…but this time it didn't belong to him…it belonged to her brother who was snapping her out of whatever little dream she was having just then.


	3. Better things to dream about

Kristen was at her locker, trying to gather whatever books she needed for the first three periods. Taking a heavy breath she took one out at a time before shutting the locker door again.

There stood Joey and Kincaid, scaring her for a moment she gulped seeing the angered look in their eyes.

"Hi guys…"

"Hi guys that's all you have to say after last night."

She could tell both of them were angry with her, she understood half of the time she was just plain being stupid and didn't think twice…but she tried to beg inside herself for that time less then a month ago when she took the two of them inside her dreams with her whenever she felt lonely. Somehow the dreams were always pleasant and she knew she would never be alone.

Finally they were getting sick of it. They were right…it was time to move on.

Kristen glared at the two for a moment, she had put up with enough, who cared if they lost a little sleep. They had all agreed never to leave each other's side, people had given their life's just for them to be standing here right now.

"I'm telling you he's coming back."

She could feel it, much like before…somehow the dreams were getting darker and she felt in her heart him getting closer. She knew he was evil, and everyone knew pure evil never dies.

"Listen little sister, we know you got this talent for bringing folks into your dreams, but we don't need it anymore. Time to live like regular people. "

She could tell Kincaid was trying his best to cast a sympathetic note to her.

"Let it rest. 'Sides, who knows, you might stir him back up if you keep going in. Kincaid and I'll help, we're still a team, and we ALL have better things to dream about."

The thought of him really coming back sent shivers down her spine, she looked at the two and understood where they were coming from, but why couldn't they what she was at this moment, before they had been so in tuned.

"You got that right signed and sealed."

Kincaid and Joey slapped each other five, Kristen smiled for a second knowing they were just trying to help. But she just couldn't give up that easy.

"Well what about this…"

She pushed up her sleeve to reveal the nasty bite bark Kincaid's dog Jason had given her last night. She remembered how she woke up with such a start she still thought for a second she was in the boiler room with the guys. She had cleaned and put a bandage on it before anyone…most of all Rick would see.

"That don't mean dick…my dog is like me, drag him into your crazy ass dreams he goes wild."

Just then Rick was walking towards her to walk her to lab, Kincaid saw him and changed the subject with a bitter tone.

"Here comes your boyfriend…did he give you a good night sleep?"

Rick being smooth as ever, who really didn't like those two from the start put his arm around her giving her a little safety net that she needed.

"We don't kiss and tell, what about you guys?"

Kincaid moved forward looking pissed as ever, about to open his mouth and most likely bitch Rick to high heaven, but Joey shoved him back and leaned in close enough for just the two of them to hear.

"Look we'll talk later okay?"

Kristen was thankful for that much, she said a silent "Okay" as he turned around and went after Kincaid in the busy crowed hallway.

"Those guys are kind of spooky."

Both started walking, Kristen still felt sick to her stomach.

"Then you must think I'm a total freak."

Rick smiled leaned in giving her a sweet kiss on the head.

"I go back and forth."

Kristen didn't feel much in the mood for any of his jokes, Rick only smiled and kissed her again.

"Lighten up. No one died."

Kristen forced a weak smile as they went to class.


	4. bring good dreams

It was third period and Kristen had excused herself from class to the ladies room. Once inside one of the stalls she fumbled for a cigarette. She caught herself nodding off a few times today and knew the longer she kept this up, the more she would have to put up with it.

Lighting and taking a long drag she leaned against one of the walls and shut her eyes for only a moment before voices of girls checking their makeup on the outside made her snap them back open.

"Get yourself together Kristen!"

She scolded herself before taking one last drag and returning back to class.

Outside near the baseball fields Alice stood in the school's gym uniform. A short sleeve forest green T-shirt and gray shorts. With her hair in a ponytail she stood with the other girls in line for tennis as the spring morning's sun blared down on her.

She stood there with her tennis racket by her side looking off a few feet away to the baseball field where the guys were having a game.

He was there.

Squinting she saw he was pitching, a small smile started to show through her face as she watched him haul back forward the baseball before the opposite team member slammed it with their wooden bate and began to run. She heard the guys shout back and forth laughing to each other, a sound that seemed very familiar in the hallways of Springwood High.

Alice turned her attention back to the line as it started to move up, that's when they started.

"Hey Alice!"

She looked over and saw it was Jim and Mark.

Jim and Mark were two seniors who had loved the rather cruel sport of picking on Alice ever since the school year started with gym. She knew they were harmless, but the never ending teases of Alice's breasts, or how "fine" she looked whenever she ran the laps started to really get under her skin.

"Lift up your shirt!"

Jim screamed standing on one of the bases, Mark started to crack up.

Alice shot them a dirty look for a second before feeling the warmth in her cheeks began to rise as the other girls started to look at her. Why couldn't they pick on someone else, what made her so special that they had to do this every single time and embarrass her.

"Come on show em off!"

The guys started to laugh together now and their voices were so loud almost everyone but the teachers started to notice. Alice heard a few of the other girls in line start to laugh which made it much worse.

"Why don't you guys shut the fuck up?"

The voice almost made her heart jump into her throat…no it couldn't be.

Joey stood there, his baseball glove and ball to one side as he used to free hand to push away the free hair that hung in his eyes. She never saw him look angry before, but this was it.

Part of her was happy he said this, another even more embarrassed.

The guys turned and looked at Joey, Jim started to snap his gum.

"Come on Crusel we're just fooling with her!"

Now everyone was looking.

"Yeah anyways she likes it, don't you Alice?"

Everyone kept looking, Alice lowered her eyes, wanting to die just then. She tried to pretend it wasn't happening, no it was happening to the girl next to her…not her.

"Yeah she likes to show em off…I mean it's hard not to, their so big!"

Mark started to make a loud groaning sound as Jim and a few other boys on the team joined in on.

That's when it happened, so fast Alice at first didn't think she saw straight.

Joey's face almost crumpled, he raised back his glove, turned his body a little and bang, a baseball flew across the field and hit Mark right in the face.

Mark made a thick sound in his throat before dropping down in a heavy heap. Right away everyone yelled and jumped back in disbelief. Most people were shocked, as much as Alice was, and as much as Jim was who looked down at his best friend.

"That asshole broke my nose!"

Mark was rolling around on the ground, holding his face…Alice could see blood as a few people started to laugh and point. Mark kept swearing as Jim turned towards Joey.

"You fucking freak!"

He charged towards him, and before Alice knew it Joey and Jim were rolling around punching each other right there on the ground. Dirt flew up just like those old cartoons in which two people would start fighting and all you would see is a giant dust ball and a spare foot or fist poking out every once in a while.

People started running towards them, the chant of the word "Fight!" started as they formed a circle around the two boys. Alice ran and was able to push past some people to see just a few moments of the fight before the coach and one of the gym teachers came running.

Coach Atkins along with Mr. Pez rushed down and grabbed both of the boys by the collars of their shirts before dragging them apart.

"Quit it!"

Alice saw Joey's face was bleeding.

"You march your little asses right to the principles' office right now!"

Mr. Pez and Coach Atkins started to march the boys forward past the crowd, before Mrs. Hyde told everyone to go back to their activities.

A half an hour later just about everyone knew about the fight…and seemed to forget Alice was the reason it started in the first place. Everyone's story changed and Alice knew by tomorrow it would become old news…as sad as it sounded fights weren't really that rare of a thing at this high school.

Mark's nose was broken, and from what Alice heard Jim and Joey were on warnings most likely be sent home for the day. After class ended she started to think about it, he did stick up for her…the least she could do was say thanks.

Still in her gym clothes she took her bag and headed down the hallway to the nurse's office.

Alice walked up to the school nurse who was sitting behind her desk with her little table fan blowing in her direction. Alice noticed she was reading some romance novel in which painted on the cover showed a beautiful young woman with flowing brown hair clutching a handful of roses.

Alice cleared her throat to get her attention, only being to the nurse once during Freshmen year when she was sent home sick.

The nurse raised her eyes and gave a warm smile to Alice, which was something she needed.

"Yes dear?"

Alice tried to smile and lot look as nervous as she felt, she clutched her notebooks tighter against her chest.

"I just wanted to see if my friend wanted to take a look at some notes I wrote for the final."

The nurse raised an eyebrow, setting down her novel with her red thick pained nails.

"Are you to in the same class together?"

Alice nodded quickly.

"Yeah, he missed last period and I know he would of wanted to see these.."

Alice was scared at first the nurse would agree and take whatever notes she was making up in her head to take to him, instead she smiled and motioned for the back room.

"He's back there…could you see if he's going back to class or wants to lay down a little longer, It's my lunch time."

Alice nodded again.

The nurse placed a bookmark in her novel and took her leather bound purse which was hiding underneath her desk. Putting the strap over one shoulder she smiled and put her "Be back in twenty minutes." sign up before leaving.

"Thanks again."

She said while walking out, Alice smiled as she watched her disappear in the hallway and then saw her chance.

Walking over to the backroom, she noticed the blinds were drawn, giving off a very dim bluish tint to the backroom. She also noticed that there was a tiny A.C hooked up to one of the windows, most likely for the students who had a weak spell in the heat or just wanted to skip a few classes and lay down.

Walking in she saw him sitting on the back over stuffed beaten couch that was set up for people to lay back on. Three or four patches were on the fabric, stitched up to hold for at least another five to four years before some teacher was willing to give up some hunk of old batten furniture for the school. He sat there with his head down, almost in-between his legs, his long brown hair hung down almost lifeless and he had an icepack pressed up against one eye.

Alice stood there for a second, trying to think of something to say, then she cleared her throat again.

But nothing came, she felt frozen, just looking at him sitting there made her feel awful. Before he even had the chance to look up she darted out and ran to her next class, almost losing breath from coming so close.

At the end of the day Alice noticed Joey's car was missing, most likely he had left soon afterwards and went home.

That's when she decided it was now or never.

Like most days after school she didn't need a ride, at two-thirty she had work and then around six she would go home and try to clean around the house before dad came home. He would be drunk like always, complain a little and then stumble off to bed.

Like always.

Walking out of the parking-lot she saw she still had time for a quick little stop, she turned the next block and headed towards Marquette street. Today it was beautiful out, the houses were all lined up in neat little rows as the rest of the schools left out for the afternoon.

Somehow as nervous as Alice felt, she dreamed that all of this had worked out for a strange reason, and how Joey must of liked her in some strange way to do that to Mark.

Smiling she found his house, having past it many times before. Brushing back her hair she sighed and knew it was now or never. Smoothing out her dress with her free hand she walked up to the front porch and rang the doorbell.

For a moment no one answered, then a middle aged woman dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt came to the door, a broom in one hand.

"Hello?"

Alice right away felt frozen again, clearing her throat she tried to smile, feeling very small inside and her skin burning.

"Hi...Hello I'm of...I'm a friend of...of Joey's and I wanted to see if he was, okay?"

Her words stumbled over each other as she gulped and waited for a response. The woman looked Alice up and down and her face seemed to soften a little, which Alice was thankful for.

"Your not one of those fools who were in the fight were you?"

Alice didn't know what to say, her eyes grew wide and she shook her head. Joey's mother laughed a little.

"I didn't think so hon, please come in..."

Joey's mother lead Alice inside, smiling and all ready asking her questions.

"What's your name dear?"

"Alice..."

"Please to meet your Alice, now I'm sorry I have a ton of cleaning to do here, his bedroom is the last one on the left upstairs, he should still be awake...I made him put ice on that thing, stupid doesn't even know what's good for him."

She gave a warm laugh as Alice weakly smiled and watched as she went into the den. Inside the place was kept up and normal, parts almost as if Alice thought it would be. Looking up at the stairs she gave herself one final chance to catch her breath and push back her hair before slowlu walking up.

The soap of the carpet smelled very strong as she walked upstairs, stopping at his bedroom door she thought for a second and then slowly knocked.

"Come in."

She heard his voice...panic rushed through her but without thinking she opened the door and just stood there.

His room was like any other teenage boy's were at this time. A huge bed, a stereo, TV, shelves, walls covered with rock posters and girls, and sport awards of every kind all around. Here she was...standing in his room.

Taking a second she looked and saw he was in a pair of red PJ bottoms and a gray T-shirt. His headphones were on and it seemed as if he was drifting off to sleep. His eye didn't look to bad now, the ice pack now laying by his side.

She stood there almost not being able to breath, he looked at her and right away sat up, almost caught of guard seeing her.

"Hi..."

He managed to shudder out with a shaken voice as he sat up more, tossing aside whatever he was reading.

Alice held her notebooks as tight as she could.

"Hi...I just came by to..."

They looked at each other, having no idea what to say. Alice wanted to die inside...he must of thought she was such a freak for coming all the way here.

"Alice right?"

Alice blinked and nodded.

"You okay?"

Alice shook her head.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine...just hit my eye a little, you were in the nurses' office today, before I got a chance to say anything you ran out."

Alice only nodded.

Joey put down his headphones.

"I just...I just wanted to thank you for..."

She felt like such an idiot.

Joey then looked at her and cracked a small smile.

"Did you hear I broke Mark's nose?"

Alice couldn't keep it in, for no reason at all she started to crack up, she felt nervous and scared, but somehow it helped since it laughed to.

A little while later Alice sat beside Joey on his water bed, the underneath slowly moving back and forth, Alice felt as if she was going to get sea sick.

Both had time to talk, mostly about what happened today in which Joey joked about, not making it into such a big deal, even if Alice thought by far it was the best thing anyone had ever done for her in her life before.

They asked a few questions, a little about Kristen, and how they knew her. Alice explained how her twin brother Rick...who Joey knew from a few classes and seeing before was dating her. Joey said he met her around last year but wouldn't go into any details.

They talked a little about school and even made Alice laugh a little more, sitting side by side.

As awful as she felt she really was having a great time, not being able to believe that here she was sitting right beside him only a few hours later.

Alice never thought herself much of a talker before, but for once she seemed to open up and really liked how someone wanted to hear what she had to say.

He didn't go a lot into himself anyways, only a little bit about school and a few other things, but mostly he let Alice talk.

Both started to relax a little after Alice looked at Joey's eye and said how sorry she was for ever having that start.

He told her it was worth it, and both matched eyes for a moment before Alice noticed a very strange looking class china doll sitting on his night stand.

"What's that?"

She picked it up and gazed at it.

Joey smiled

"That's my mullasian dream doll, supposed to bring good dreams."

Alice found it funny how such an off thing would be in a teenage boy's room. Looking at it one final time she set it back.

"Do you believe in that sort of thing?"

"I guess after time yeah...I do."

"Where did you get it?"

"Doctor I knew gave it to me before he retired to New York, said it was for good luck."

"Does it work?"

"Lately it had..."

He looked at her again, and that strange tossing feeling washed over her as they locked eyes.

Just then Alice saw the time, she was late for work and needed to get out of there. Grabbing her things she said how sorry she was again and was about to just hurry out before saying anything else stupid he stopped her and asked for her number.

Alice seemed almost a little shocked to hear this. Did it mean anything or was he just trying to be nice?

After giving it to him he put his ice pack on his face again and told her he would see her around in school. As nervous as she felt she smiled and said her final goodbyes before leaving.

When she reached the diner Debbie was on and didn't seem to mind at all. Knowing Kristen and Rick would both have problems she went to Debbie and yet again felt normal and a little out of her shell again as she gushed about that half an hour with him.

Debbie kept making jokes about how cute they would be together and told Alice to be a little more forward if she wanted anything to work out.

Smiling Alice went through the rest of her day and everything seemed like a breeze. And by the time her head hit the pillow she was all ready to replay the dream again in her mind.

That night she went to be the happiest girl in the world.


	5. Waking up

Kincaid remembered thirteen months ago when he had finally woken up less then a half an hour after he had fallen into whatever dream land the other and himself had entered. His heavy eyelids fluttered and he heard Max, the orderly shake his shoulder hard, repeating his name over and over again.

Kincaid opened his eyes and looked around the small room to find Will, Taryn, and Nancy all slumped in their chairs. He didn't need anyone to explain to him…he had been there and he knew that they were all dead.

Two other orderlies and a nurse entered the room. The nurse covered her face with her hands, dragging down the flesh of her face to a tight almost Halloween mask as she screamed and ran out the doorway where she had came.

Kincaid took a second, his head still feeling rather light and he sat up in his chair and looked at the three bodies. He could feel it inside him…it was over.

He could hear Dr. Sims being paged along with more help, running footsteps came further down the hall.

He looked at his friends and sighed, a heavy feeling in his heart, most of all to Nancy. How beautiful she looked just then. The dream didn't last too much longer after they knew it was over and they had won. Kristen wouldn't let go of her body, convinced she could still save her. Joey and himself joined her, sitting on the dirty carpet floor, all circled around her body, their savior, almost their mother and stroked her hair and all prayed that wherever she went…it was far away from whatever hell they sat in right then.

Somehow from the faint pale peaceful look on her face they all knew she lost everything to make sure they would survive.

Then slowly, very slowly it faded out.

Dr. Sims rushed into the room and ran over to Will and Taryn. Feeling their pulse, and opening their eyelids she screamed for more help as more and more people entered the room.

"What did she do to you?"

She asked in a panic filled voice to Kincaid who just blinked and looked around at the others. Then it dawned on him…the others.

He flew out of his chair before anyone could take hold and rushed down the hallway, towards the room where Kristen was held.

He reached it and to much of his suspire the locked door now stood wide open and she stood there in her pink night gown almost in a silent shock. Out of breath and almost with mixed emotions of everything that had happened they just stood looking at each other as tears of either joy or sorrow ran down her cheeks as she ran to him and he took her in his arms.

"It's over…it's finally over."

She whispered in his ear, he smiled crying himself before both saw that all attention was towards the group room…they didn't need to say anything, they knew what was going on.

They peaked out towards the hall and saw the main doors to that unit was open, remembering from when she was first brought there Joey was only one floor down. Without a second thought they went hand in hand racing down there and past the stairs before anyone would notice.

A nurse looked up from her desk when they reached the floor.

"Hey your not…"

"Fuck off lady."

Kincaid said as he ran with Kristen right past her, knowing she would call for help over the intercom within seconds.

They ran into Joey's room and saw him sitting right up in bed, clawing at the tube which had been forced down his throat for oxygen. Both stood in the doorway, crying and smiling as Joey ripped the tube out and started to cough. They went to him.

"Joey…"

Kristen said as she sat beside him, holding and squeezing him as hard as she could. Kincaid joined her as they all cried and laughed knowing they had made it.

"We did it, he's gone."

Joey said in a raspy voice, it didn't come as a shock to them, knowing he would speak now. Freddy's curse and hold on them had been lifted. Kristen held onto the boys for dear life as she cried, aching all over.

A doctor came rushing in, screaming to know the meaning of all of this, also behind them were Joey's parents who had been sitting in the waiting room.

The three of them looked up and Joey smiled at his parents standing in the doorway looking scared to death.

"Hi mom…hi dad."

Joey's mother clutched her chest as his father's jaw dropped.

"Joey?"

His mother began to cry hearing her son's voice.

Joey turned towards the others, still sore in the limbs and chest. He smiled at his friends and hugged them.

Things were gonna be okay now…they had each other.

Nancy's words then rang through their head.

"You are the last of the Elm Street children…"

Kincaid drifted off to sleep with those last memories in his head, happier ones of before as his dog nuzzled his side.


	6. Dream to die for

Across town at the exact moment Kincaid died in his bedroom, Kristen sat up in her own bed drinking a cola and smoking a cigarette. She had been staying up for the past two nights…somehow everything she had learned a year ago came back to her. Blasting loud music, cutting herself, slapping her face, coffee, soda, even a cool breeze from her window that over looked her front lawn would help.

She knew maybe she was being silly and just plain scared, maybe in a strange way she didn't want it to be over since there was a risk of loosing the two people that meant the most to her after what had happened.

But she just had this feeling she couldn't shake.

Getting up to smoke by her window she sighed, never feeling so alone in her life.

She wished Nancy was still alive.

In a way she thought maybe she should get to bed and stop acting so nervous, but these feelings were the ones that started this in the first place. Also she feared that maybe even for a moment if she got scared she might bring the others in her dream…and that was the last thing she wanted.

Smiling a little to herself, just three hours ago she had gotten off the phone with Rick she tried to focus on something positive.

Summer was only in another month, then she would be a senior. Rick and her planned on maybe going camping if her mother allowed it during the 4th, and then just kicking back and relaxing before her mother started to pressure her about collages in New York.

But the feeling wouldn't go away…why did she feel so scared, and why did she now at this very moment feel part of her was gone.

A few minutes later when she went to splash some cold water on her face, Joey in his house a few blocks away was nodding off to his TV and listening to his stereo.

It had been an eventful day. After baseball practice he went home and his mother forced him to put ice on his eye. The swelling had gone down and after having some dinner he crashed in his room, now reading the latest issue of Rolling Stone before getting some shut eye.

He laid there, with the images of his TV flashing out in colors in the darkness of his room as he started to think about Alice.

He seemed more the type that was into the models that covered his bedroom walls. Blond and perfect. But thinking back those types were the ones that got him in trouble.

He had noticed her and even if everyone said since things had changed over this year he had broken out of his shell for good. Part of the old Joey still wanted to stay silent and sit in the shadows.

He smiled to himself, thinking about those bright green eyes she had, and that smile whenever he made her laugh. Maybe he was being a little too forward, but he had never really had a real girlfriend before…maybe that was yet another step in becoming what Kincaid kept calling "normal"

Kristen had done it.

But then again he knew how Rick felt about him.

Maybe he would stop by the dinner later on tomorrow, see if she had any plans for that night.

He smiled and tried to keep watching TV when his head started to nod and his eyelids felt like stones.

He blinked and then felt his water bed began to move. Startled he sat up a little as his bed started to rock back and forth like crazy.

Throwing his headphones off he sat back and pulled back the sheets.

Much to his surprise he saw Alice in his water bed.

She was naked and floating around underneath the clear plastic, pressing her perfect body against it. Joey smiled, sure he had some pretty good dreams before, but never ones with her in them.

Her long red hair floated around like an angel under the water as she smiled back up at him, mouthing his name. Joey laughed trying to press his hands down as far as they would go on the plastic just to touch him. All ready he felt himself getting excited as he gazed at her breasts.

She smiled pressing her palms against the plastic when…

A voice came…

"Joey…"

It was faint at first and then got louder…just then the image of Alice started to fade away and for a split second Joey thought he saw under the blurry water red and green.

"JOEY!"

The voice snapped him awake from by far the best dream he had ever had. His heart racing he bolted up and saw his mother standing there with the laundry basket and her eyebrow raised.

"Joey!"

Joey lowered his headphones and looked up at her, still a little unsure if he was awake or not.

"It's time to get up…"

She turned around snapping off his TV.

"I wish you would turn this crap off…God look at this mess."

She started to pick up T-shirts off the ground, Joey just looked at her, shocked and almost pissed off to wake her from such a great dream. Images of Alice kept flashing back through his head.

Joey's mother looked up at him disgusted.

"Your gonna be late."

She clicked her tongue rolling her eyes and mumbling about "Oh Jesus." And walked out of the room. Joey looked and saw he had a full blown hard on through his PJ pants, and his mother had seen it.

Embarrassed he pulled his covers up to hide his lower half and rubbed his face looking at the clock.

He wished to God his mother hadn't of woken him up…those kinds of dreams he would die for.


	7. One down

Joey left his house in a rather excited mood then usual. Walking to his car he noticed he was whistling and had some big stupid grin on his face since breakfast. Sure enough his mother gave him hell about yesterday and swore to him that the next fight he got himself into she would give him his next black eye. Brushing it off like always his father didn't even seem to mind. In fact when he got home around six he took Joey into the kitchen and sat him down seeing his bruised eye in better light.

"That sure is gonna be a swell up, better put more ice on it kid."

And with a slap on the shoulder that was it.

He knew that the fight was yesterday's news, and maybe Jim or Mark might try to start something later next week, but something about last night stuck to him. He had noticed Alice only a few times before. She hung with Kristen's crowd and was that asshole Rick's sister. She worked at the diner and was kind of shy since whenever they were in English together she stuck close to her brother or was spacing out not talking at all.

He had only thought of her a few times, really not taking the time of day to focus on it, but the last few months he had the chance to say hi every now and then, and saw her more in gym then usual. Once she ditched those granny dresses she still seemed to think was in style, and put back her hair she wasn't half bad. Yesterday seemed to set him off, he was a good enough kid when it came to school, other then skipping a few classes and getting into a few little pushes with some kids on his sport's team. But something about yesterday filled with such an anger he couldn't think straight.

Maybe he had over reacted.

What shocked him the most was her coming over, he never expected that to happen.

She was only over for about a half an hour, she seemed pretty distant, and kind of shy. He tried to get her talking and making her relax by asking some questions but she never seemed to wanna make eye contact.

He knew where she was coming from, that sort of thing was tough. But it did show something had happened…right?

He smiled, thinking back on how nervous he really was, and how much he hated his mother for letting her see his room, God there were still dirty clothes on the floor. Laughing to himself as he drove down the street he thought back on making her laugh herself…he knew there at to be something going on there, something.

Maybe this feeling was the right one, maybe today he would go up to her at lunch and ask for her number…maybe.

He turned into the next block, today he was picking up Kincaid for school like every other Friday. Somehow he couldn't wait to tell Kincaid what had happened with Alice in person. All ready yesterday afternoon after he had been sent home from school and right after Alice had visited he called him.

"Yeah she seems like a cool chick."

He remembered Kincaid saying over the phone and how he shouldn't be such a pussy and maybe ask her out.

He knew Kincaid was right.

Then it caught his eye.

He turned his car slowly into the driveway and his heart sank all the way down into his stomach.

An ambulance and two police cars were parked outside Kincaid's house.

Parking he got out and headed towards the front porch, not having a chance to think of anything. Had something happened?

He rang the doorbell and felt his palms began to sweat.

The door opened and Kincaid's mother Lucy stood there. Joey and Kincaid were best friends and really did spend almost 99 of their time other each other's houses. Lucy was very much like Kincaid, big and had her own point of view when it came to talking her mind. Now the strong woman who used to stand in the kitchen as Kincaid and him played cars and joke about the neighbors, now stood there with bloodshot raw looking eyes.

"Joey…"

"Mrs. Kin…"

"He's gone Joey…my boy is gone…"

She started to cry, Joey just stood there in shock.

What?

She looked down at her shoes for a second and then looked back at him.

"What seventeen year old has heart failure…who?"

Joey's mouth opened without him even knowing, he stared for a long time before he started to feel light headed.

A little while later he watched the sheet covered stretcher be placed into the back of the ambulance. The sirens turned off it slowly backed out and drove away. How could this happen, he had just talked to him.

Kincaid dead?

No, it was a lie.

So many memories of this past year came back to Joey, they had been best friends and promised to stick together after being released from the hospital. They shared the same interests, and talked about girls and each other's problems. The kid who he thought of as a brother had died…just died?

After everything that had happened, no…it wasn't true.

Kincaid's father spoke to him a little while later after the police left, saying their last words of condoles and left by nine. Joey just sat there as Kincaid's father put his arm around his shoulder and asked him one on one if something was going on again.

Joey then began to cry, he had just lost his best friend.

At the exact time in school as Alice day dreamed of yesterday's experiences she smiled to herself as Kristen asked around in a nervous tone where Joey and Kincaid were.

Alice hoped she would see Joey again.

Kristen saw that look in Alice's face and didn't like it…she knew something was wrong, and if she didn't see the two of them by third period she was leaving.

She felt her heart began to skip just as Joey only a few blocks away broke down crying in front of Kincaid's father.

One down…two to go.


	8. Kids died there

At school Kristen sat outside near the benches. She hadn't had gotten any sleep last night and she sure felt it.

Three cups of coffee wasn't hacking it anymore. And she was sure as hell glad Rick hadn't seen her like this yet.

She had searched the parking-lot for either Joey or Kincaid, hoping to talk to them and maybe finally put her foot down about this feeling she was having and maybe bring up that they should call Dr. Gordon who was now living in New York. She mumbled to herself knowing that Kincaid would have some smart ass remark, but at this point she would tell him to shove it.

She wasn't feeling this way for nothing.

Smoking a cigarette she heard Alice sit down beside her with her books. She saw her hair was still wet from a shower.

"There you are…Rick has been looking everywhere for you."

Kristen threw down her smoke looking at her very fair and weak looking friend. So much love for her rushed into her heart just then, wishing she had Alice for a sister.

"Have you seen Joey or Kincaid around?"

Alice gave a faint smile for a second.

"I'm sure their around."

Kristen then remembered but she had heard from Debbie and Rick, she hadn't of had a chance last night to call her. A weak smile came over her as she elbowed her.

"Heard your night in shinning armor broke Mark London's nose yesterday."

Alice blushed.

"Kristen…"

Kristen smiled, knowing all along Alice had liked him, but in a strange way didn't want anything or anyone to get close to them. She wasn't jealous, or scared something would happen. She just thought since the two of them liked being off to their own so much, Rick wouldn't like the idea of settling those two up.

But Joey had a mind of his own, and Kristen knew him better then anyone else, and knew he would treat her well.

"He's really cute, I'm sure he likes you."

Alice shook her head still smiling.

"No…he doesn't."

"Oh yeah, when why did he kick the shit out of two guys for you?"

Kristen laughed as Alice shrugged it off.

"He was just trying to be…"

Just then the first bell rang, students had ten minutes to get to their classes, the sound made both girls break their train of thought as Kristen looked at Alice's pale face.

She smiled lighting up another smoke before class.

"We have matching luggage…nightmares?"

Alice slowly nodded, as much as she thought she would have had a good night's sleep after yesterday, she kept having little dreams of her father…and his drinking.

"God I hate dreaming…"

Kristen shook her head, knowing that really was the truth, putting aside her gift, dreams had brought her too much pain and trouble.

Alice gazed out smiling in her own little thoughts.

"I love to dream."

"How can you control them?"

"My mom taught me when I was little…did you ever hear of the dream master?"

Kristen smiled.

"Sounds like a game show host to me."

"No, it's just the way of showing you how to deal with them, like a guard…just dream someplace fun, remember your in control."

"How do you know so much about dreams?"

Alice knew this was the truth, since her mom had died and her father took up drinking it was her only escape, always dreaming away what she really wanted her life to be like.

"Well when it's all you have you sort of become an expert on it."

Kristen gave her friend a faint smile when the bell rang, both girls gathered up their books.

"Come on before your brother sends out a search party."

Both girls went inside holding their books as they started for English class, the halls were crowded like always and they managed to push through in order to make it before the bell. Then Kristen stopped.

"What is it?"

Kristen saw Joey standing in the doorway of the class room, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his eyes looking blank and almost empty,

Right away she knew something was wrong.

Walking towards him almost in a daze he put his arm around her shoulder and within seconds they disappeared into the crowd. Alice stood there almost having no idea what to say…then the bell rang and they were gone.

Alice slowly entered her classroom, where everyone was still standing up and talking before the teacher came in. Rick saw her and walked over.

"Where's Kris?"

Alice gulped.

"Joey…umm, they went down the hall to talk I think."

"What?"

Rick's face changed right away and pushed her to the side a little as he stuck his head out the classroom door. No one else was left in the hallway.

Soon enough the teacher came in and called them to their seats, Alice watched Rick for a while who looked pretty bothered, then started to day dream while looking out the window.

Outside in Joey's car Kristen sobbed against Joey's chest, hot wet sticky tears rolled down her face as her chest started to hitch.

Not Kincaid, please not Kincaid.

He was the tough one, he was the one the protected, the one who never showed fear.

"I'm gonna last longer then all of you."

Kristen remembered him saying back in Western Hills.

Soon she looked up at Joey, his sweet very lost face looking down at her.

"He got him I know it…"

"No you don't."

"How can you say no, that bastard killed him!"

She started to cry harder but Joey made her face him again.

"Kristen, Kincaid died from a heart attack, his father told me…"

"How can you be so stupid, you know what's going on!"

"Kristen…he couldn't come back, you know that."

Kristen backed away from him shaking her head.

"We're next Joey…you'll see the second you fall asleep…"

"I slept all of last night and nothing happened, why wouldn't he of killed me huh?"

Kirsten kept shaking her head.

"No…no…"

She put her head in her hands and began to sob again.

"Kristen…Kincaid was still on medication for his spasms, they said that's what maybe caused his problems with his heart, you know more then anyone those drugs they pumped us full of could still effect us, come on!"

Kristen started to breath heavy, she stared at Joey's dashboard and tried to reach out to hold it for support, but the more her head started to spin, the more the dashboard seemed further away as her hand reached for it.

"Kristen…I just had to go back to the hospital, what less then a month ago for chest pains…it's the drugs they gave us, that's probably what happened, and your not doing yourself any favors for not sleeping."

"We need…we need to call Dr. Gordon."

"Kristen!"

Joey grabbed her by the shoulders.

"I lost a friend to, but you need to get a grip on things…he can't come back, you know that."

Kristen looked at her friend and started to cry again, Joey's face soften and he took her back into his arms. He loved Kristen with all his heart, she seemed so beautiful all the time, between her outer and inner strength. She was the leader, and now it was only the two of them.

"We're all that's left."

He whispered in her ear as she shook.

"We need to take care of ourselves…"

Kristen cried for a little longer and looked at him.

"I'm not crazy…I know something is wrong."

Joey touched her face, trying to tell her again that Kincaid died from an accident, in fact from the way they had been acting it was almost a huge surprise that they hadn't dropped yet.

Kincaid, their friend and brother was now dead, and even if Joey did have that small feeling deep inside him he knew it had to have been from an accident, it wasn't he wouldn't of woke up this morning.

Just then there was a slam on his passenger window, so loud both jumped. Rick stood there looking pissed as hell, Alice hid a little behind him.

"Rick…"

Kristen opened her door.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Rick then saw Kristen's eyes, his face changed yet again as he kneeled down to eye level to her and touched her face, worried.

"Kris, what happened?"

"Kincaid's dead."

Both Rick and Alice stood stunned.

"What?"

Kristen shook her head.

"Look your going to hear a lot of stories…"

Joey sat behind the driver's seat almost spacing out himself, he saw Alice for a second looking in on him, worried and a little scared.

Rick hugged Kristen, trying to calm her nerves.

"Oh baby I'm sorry…"

Kristen nuzzled against his shoulder, looking up at Alice's wide green eyes.

"I know he got him, I know it…"

Joey sighed looking out from his windshield, it was one thing to be this way, but why tell them…now they for sure were going to think they were crazy if it wasn't enough.

"Who?"

Kristen then turned and looked at Joey, tears still rolling down her cheeks.

"Can we go…please?"

Joey nodded as Kristen stood up for a second, lifting the seat so she could climb in with Rick. Alice took a second and then took the passenger seat, she looked at Joey for a second.

"Hey…"

"Hi…"

He looked at her for another second and then started the engine.

They drove for a while and Kristen told Rick she would go back for her jeep later. Holding on to him for dear life she told Joey to drive to "The House." He eyed her in the rearview mirror and then parked right in front of it.

Joey knew she was going to tell them, there was no stopping it. They had both promised each other they would never tell anyone the truth since no one would believe them…no matter what.

Also…what if did come back, would this make it worse?

No he couldn't think that way, Kincaid was dead now…and Kristen was driving herself crazy as Alice and her boyfriend watched.

Kristen wiped her eyes and then looked at the house.

Alice only knew very little about 1428 Elm Street. Only that the old sheriff's daughter lived there with her mother, and went crazy after watching her boyfriend get murdered across the street.

Her mother committed suicide soon afterwards and she was locked up for a while. Alice remembered hearing some scandal along with it when she was little, but last year a new family moved in. In fact she remembered their eldest son who was a year ahead of her class. They both had the same bio class together.

Jess or something?

That spring fourteen kids were killed in a bus accident, soon afterwards his family moved out and over the past year the house started to fall apart. Now there were stories that surrounded it, and only on Halloween little kids would dare to go up on the porch and ring to old rusting doorbell.

"What's with the house?"

Rick looked out the window, Kristen went closer to him and stared.

"Kids died in there…"

"What?"

Joey stayed silent the whole time, he only bit his lip and looked out the windshield. As much as he wanted Kristen to shut up, how they had promised not to tell anyone, or let anyone they got close with to know how crazy they were to hear the truth. But somehow, knowing that Kincaid was dead it seemed to numb whatever pain there was to blame it on something else.

Now Alice would know…and most likely she would never look him in the eye again.

"Twenty years ago there was a child murdered named Fred Krueger who kidnapped and killed at least a dozen kids in this neighborhood, when he released from the courts a bunch of parents, my parents, Joey's parents, even Kincaid's got together and hunted him down…"

Joey eyed Alice for a second and looked away, hearing this out loud made him ache.

"They burned him alive and hid the remains, now for the past seven years or so…he's come back, but he can only kill the children of the parents who murdered him through their dreams…he makes them look like suicides, or accidents, Joey and me are the last of the children who killed him now."

"What?"

"I know it's crazy…that's the reason we were all locked up at Western Hills, we did anything to stay awake since our friends were being killed, then a woman, the same girl who lived in this house came to help us, we thought we had killed them, but he's back and he's after us now…"

She drifted off and started to cry, Rick held her.

"That doesn't make any sense…"

"Than don't believe it."

Joey didn't mean to sound so uncaring, but he just couldn't understand anything right now…how could this of happened.

"I know he's back, we're history if we fall asleep…"

"Hey don't worry, I'll protect you…"

Rick nuzzled Kristen again as she shook her head and looked out the window.

Alice looked at the two of them worried and then at Joey who wouldn't even face her. Looking out the window she stared at the house and said under her breath.

"Now I lay me down to sleep…the master of dreams my soul I keep…"

Her memory faded, but she did remember that much of the rhyme her mother had taught her.

Just then a loud horn sounded through the air, making everyone jump.

Parked outside was Kristen's mother in her BMW, honking the horn. A good ole' friendly face Joey missed.

"Kristen get away from that house!"

She kept sounding the horn, Kristen looked and sighed.

"I better go…"

She started towards the door when Rick held to her.

"Look, you don't have to go…"

Kristen smiled at his sweet face.

"I'll call you…"

He smiled looking at her big blue eyes.

"We'll figure this out together, don't worry…"

Joey pushed up his seat as Kristen climbed out. Looking at her mother who at any second was about to race away, she eyed Joey who looked just as drained as her sitting beside Alice. Somehow that seemed right at that moment.

She leaned in to the window, touching Joey's hand.

"Whatever you do…don't fall asleep…"

Joey looked up at her.

"Kristen, we'll…"

Just then her mother's car horn went off again, sighing she gave a silent nod to Joey and then waved goodbye to Alice, slowly getting inside her mother's car and speeding away.

"What is all this shit man?"

Joey eyed Rick in the rearview mirror.

"It's true…"

"Horseshit…"

Joey started up his car, planning on dropping the two of them off as quick as possible before going home and taking something to get some rest and get away from the deep grief he felt inside over his friend.

"Yeah maybe…"

"That's what you guys were locked up for?"

Joey started to drive down the street and further away from the house.

"Yeah…

He didn't want to talk anymore, holding back the tears he kept driving…Alice watched him and finally turned her attention towards the window.

She kept repeating the verse, then glanced at him once final time.

"Their the last…"

Somehow the words rang deep inside her as they drove further and further away.


	9. Now no one sleeps

Kristen stared at her food in the dinning room. Her mother had Linda the maid cook up some Greek salad chicken for the two of them, but looking at her food made her stomach toss.

She took another sip of her water, not really paying attention, feeling her thoughts drift in and out as her heart pounded in her chest.

Kincaid…why Kincaid?

Trying to remember his sweet face she sighed, holding back tears again as she played with her fork, just then her mother came in placing down the phone, most likely one of her many boyfriends calling in the middle of the afternoon.

"Something wrong with the food?"

She sat down and started to fill her plate, a wine glass all ready filled to the top for her afternoon drinking. Kristen sighed, feeling anger build in her tried little body. Before she had been so much stronger, now staying awake stung her insides. Every second she had to force herself to keep her head from nodding off.

"Well I'll tell you something mom…when one of your friends die, tell me what it does to your appetite."

"Your just tried, don't think I didn't notice you haven't been sleeping, that has got to stop."

Kristen rolled her eyed and then felt light headed, right away her head snapped up.

"What's wrong with me?"

She could hardly lift her fork.

"Just nerves, that will help."

Kristen eyed what her mother was looking at and almost died, she then saw how foggy her water glass looked. Slowly standing up, almost falling over she lifted her glass and looked at it.

"Oh God…"

She dropped the glass and it shattered onto her mother's lace tablecloth.

"Oh Kristen…"

"What did you do!"

Running to the side of the table, Kristen opened her mother's purse, dumping out every thing inside before seeing it.

"Oh God sleeping pills!"

Emptying the entire bottle onto the table she looked up at her mother backing up.

No…please no.

Her all ready felt herself start to sway back and forth. How could she of let this happen. She knew he was back, and she wasn't ready. He had all ready got Kincaid, Joey and her were next.

No she had to stay awake, she just had to.

"Look Kristen I'm sorry but…"

"Sorry, sorry that your tennis pals torched this manic and now he's after me!"

Right away she saw a change in her mother's eyes, she just stood there stunned.

"In case you haven't been keeping score, it's his fucking banquet, and I'm the LAST COURSE!"

"Kristen we went over this in therapy…"

Kristen then knew it was over, she had taken too many pills. All ready colors were staring to fade in and out. Here she was, almost eighteen years old and about to die. She had let the others, most of all Nancy down.

If only she had more time to warn everyone…please she prayed, please keep Joey awake, he had to live.

She wished he was here right now.

"No mother, you just murdered me, take that to your godamm therapy…"

Twisting away she started to stumble up her stairs, feeling as if her legs had become stuff wood, and her feet large blocks of ice. She knew she was going to die, but she wanted to do it away from her mother…that bitch who never cared.

Running up to her room everything started to spin. A million thoughts came back to her, some happy, some sad.

"No…"

She searched for the phone, maybe she could call Alice or Joey…

Falling to the floor she tried to remember what Alice had said about staying in control.

"Dream someplace fun…dream someplace fun…"

Then it faded out.

Across town Alice looked at the mirror, covered in photographs, just the night before, when almost everything seemed right in the world, despite her little argument with her father, Rick had come into her bedroom to cheer her up even more, before asking a little bit about what happened that day. Alice lied saying nothing.

Rick told her good since Joey was bad news, then made her crack up trying to show off one of his new fight kicks.

Now alone in her room, Rick worrying downstairs about Kristen, she started to think about what she had said.

Was it true?

Joey and her sure acted like it was.

And it would explain a lot…

Looking at her mirror of photos she sighed, wishing nothing had happened to Kincaid and she had never heard the story, somehow she couldn't focus hard enough on a nice enough day dream as she worried about her friend.

Something was going on…she knew it.

Brushing back her damp hair from a shower she opened her bedroom window to let in a breeze and laid back in her soft bed…drifting off to sleep she thought again about what Kristen had said about the house…

"Kids died in there…"

Then she heard her name…

"ALICE!"

It seemed to strong, it almost were like she was standing right beside her. Tossing and turning she then opened her eyes and without another moment she found herself someplace else.

In a basement, maybe a dark warehouse? Wherever she now stood, she knew it wasn't her bedroom. The please was full of blasting boilers, which roared with fire, hot steaming pipes hissed with heat, and water dripped from hanging chains.

Looking around she saw Kristen…and something she would never forget in her life.

He was a monster, a burned man, who wore a dirty red and green sweater. A brown hat was lowered down and she thought she saw claws.

His face made her freeze right there.

"Alice no!"

Kristen ran over, never looking so scared before in her life.

"Alice please wake up!"

Kristen slapped Alice right across the face without any warning, Alice was stunned on how much it hurt. Wasn't this just an awful nightmare.

No…this was too real.

Kristen then held her crying.

"Alice I'm so sorry, I was the one who pulled you in…"

Just then Alice turned and saw Joey, just as she had earlier, now only in his night clothes. He stood there looking just as frozen as she was moments ago.

"Joey…"

The monster hissed.

Kristen spun around, tears filling in her eyes.

"Joey help!"

Joey looked over at Kristen and then at the monster. The thing cackled as it scraped it claws against the heated metal.

"We beat you before!"

"And now it's time to kill the two of you once and for all…"

Kristen and Joey eyed each other, and Alice just watched them…was this really happening? No it couldn't be…this was just a dream, she was the one in control.

Joey tried to speak, his mouth opened but no words came, shocked he held his throat as his eyes bugged out, Kristen watched helpless.

The thing laughed again.

"Awww…"

Joey tried to speak again but nothing, the thing same closer, grinning at Alice as she stood back between the two of them. They stood in front of her, as scared as they were they weren't about to let whatever this thing near her.

"Elm street's last brats…farewell…"

It clicked it's claws together as Joey and Kristen charged at him. Alice screamed trying her best to press herself up against the wall as she watched the two of them fight him. Alice swung up in the air as if she was flying and did a handstand before kicking the man in the side. Joey rammed his entire body into him and spun around to his back.

They circled reach other and went to charge again, this time the man flashed out his claws and cut Joey's arm, opening the sleeve of his T-shirt. Joey's eyes watered up and he stumbled backwards as the man let out one arm and flung Joey's body like a rag doll across the room. Alice watched as he banged against one of the stoves and crumpled to the ground bleeding.

Kristen watched and then ran over to Alice.

"Get away from her!"

Kristen then charged at the man one final time, the last of her strength until it, but the man caught her midway and raised her above the ground. Alice covered her mouth in order not to scream.

The man looked up at Kristen before flinging her.

"Now no one sleeps!"

He tossed Kristen into what looked to be a sea of flames, Kristen's body disappeared as Alice jumped back, looking at Joey who looked up from the floor, his mouth bleeding and his eyes wide.

The man ripped open his sweater to reveal what seemed to be in the smoke clouded room, a million awful screaming faces in his chest. Alice cried out as she heard Kristen's last final and pained words.

"You'll need my power…"

Alice then felt something so strong rush into her, it looked as if it were a flash of light. Ramming into her she knocked against the wall, her nose gushing blood. Joey looked up at the man and finally was able to speak.

"NOOOOOOO!"

Right away the sound of Joey's voice made her head pound and in seconds she snapped awake, drenched in sweat in her darkened bedroom.

She sat there breathing heavy when Rick walked in, dark circles all ready forming under each eye.

"You okay?"

"Kristen…we need to get to Kristen's!"

Without thinking, she felt herself almost as if she was still asleep panic as she grabbed her shoes and rush past Rick.

It took only four minutes to get there, as they ran over they ran into Joey at the exact time, his car parked half on, half off the lawn.

Alice stared at him for a second in utter disbelief. She saw his arm was bleeding. Rick looked at him as the three of them ran up the driveway.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

There wasn't any time for an answer, they rushed past Mrs. Parker once she answered the door and right away the strong smell of burning filled their noses. Rick pushed in front of them running up the stairs calling her name.

The four of them busted through her door and a huge wave of heat hit them…the entire room was set on fire. Mrs. Parker screamed and jumped back as her daughter burned up on her bed.

Rick screamed and tried to lunge forward as Joey held him back. They stood there watching as the last of Kristen Parker, the dream warrior was no more.


	10. The past

Sheriff Anderson stood further back from the crowd at the funeral that day. There were about thirty people in total surrounding the small white coffin as Reverend Peters read a passage from the bible. "Deliver us from our children."

The words rang through the silent cemetery as friends and family bowed their heads and mourned to themselves as sprinklers further away up towards the north hill were turned on. It was a depressing nearly overcast day, and somehow the entire town was left in almost a frozen lock after the two deaths of these local teens only a day apart. These were good kids, smart kids who seemed to have nothing physically wrong with them.

They had blamed the boy's death on heart failure. Back when the boy was committed to Western Hills over two years ago for a short span of fourteen months, he was prescribed Hypnocil, a very experimental drug which was given to him around the time last year right before he was released. He only took the medication for two short months before going off the drug.

He was proven cured, but from the autopsy early this week the hospital seemed nearly almost dead given that the drug triggered the heart attack, with traces of it still in his system, as impossible as it seemed. They explained drugs like Hypnocil could effect anyone who took it, even if it was for such a short period of time as this boy had. It seemed to wait almost a year later, but from every chart it proved that it caused him to die and whatever wall that was in his heart to collapse.

As for the girl, it was simple…a very tragic accident. She feel asleep with a lit cigarette in her hand. The fire must of caught pretty quick, and she just didn't wake up in time.

But whatever the police or newspapers said, everyone had almost the same feeling the sheriff did at this exact moment. It was to strange…less then a year ago Springwood was almost being known for their problem.

Almost twenty deaths spread across town, accidents and suicides they claimed. First in the 1960's there was that child murder, killing nearly a dozen children. Anderson could barley remember the case at all, only that he was a child himself when it happened, and right around the time when the case ended his parents had moved into town.

He was interning for the sheriff's station back in 81 when he was only nineteen. There was very little he could do around the place, so he worked the graveyard shift every other Friday night. He remembered the problems they had back then.

Three kids who went to Springwood High died all within a month. First there was that girl, in fact Lt. Thompson took him on the crime scene that night. That's the first time he ever threw up in front of anyone before in his whole life.

All he could see was blood. It was soaked into the carpet, the bed, the walls, the ceiling…

Lt. Thompson's daughter was there that night, in fact the girl who got killed was one of her friends. He remembered Nancy, in fact almost a few months before hand when everything started he had tried picking her up when she came over to the station to drop off coffee for her father one night.

But all she did was laugh and point to the car outside, she had a boyfriend…and Anderson knew whoever this kid was, he sure was lucky to have grabbed such a sweet kid like Nancy.

Then the guy who they had coughed, the girl's boyfriend hanged himself in his jail cell. He was the one who made the 911 call that night.

At first it was labeled at just a simple case. The boyfriend was no good and killed this girl, then the guilt got to him and he killed himself. The case was sealed until a week later when he thought for the longest time he wouldn't be able to cut it in this line of work.

They got the call late that night, it was Nancy's boyfriend who lived across the street from Lt. Thompson's ex wife. They wouldn't let him go in and see, but he remembered how much the mother screamed out on the lawn, and how sick the whole team looked after leaving.

He didn't need to see…he knew what had happened.

He was sent home early that night.

In the end they said someone must of sneaked into the house, maybe some manic who read about the funerals in the paper and saw Nancy's boyfriend's photo. His parents moved away within a year and some young couple bought the house, never knowing what had really happened in the upstairs bedroom.

Lt. Thompson's ex wife killed herself a month later, her body was found by Nancy who was all ready labeled as the town's loon after pretty much driving herself crazy after her boyfriend's murder. She was sent away and the house was put up for sale.

That's when Lt. Thompson started his drinking, he pretty much disappeared from everyone after that. It took almost

After the twenty or so other deaths Anderson was deputy, last year he moved up to sheriff after being away for almost two years or so.

But something rang cold inside him, as much as everyone wanted to know that the problems this small town suffered were over, they knew they weren't. Almost thirty deaths in the past seven years.

These were no accidents.

He knew the boy and the girl had both been to Western Hills around the time that scandal had taken place. He knew both had suffered the same problems and were close friends. And he knew the other boy that they knew from the hospital was there with two other kids the night of the girl's death.

They claimed they just had a bad feeling about their friend and wanted to see her.

Anderson looked around the crowd of friends and family dressed in black and didn't see the boy's face. Sighing he turned and walked back to his curser. He had some paperwork to do now.

Just as Kristen's casket was being lowered Alice snapped out of a small memory she had of her friend. Both had gone dressed as sisters last Halloween at Randy's party. She remembered how shy she felt, but for that one night dressed as Kristen, the girl she loved up to and wanted to so much, she felt almost free.

Now she was gone.

Rick hadn't been talking much since it happened.

Alice's head throbbed from not sleeping the last two days. She claimed it was from nerves about what had happened and no one blamed her. But the truth was she was terrified.

That man's awful face, that laugh…and those claws…

"You'll need my power!"

She heard Kristen's voice ring inside her head.

Rick's arm went around her snapping out of her little dream.

"Come on…"

His dark sunglasses pushed up against his drained and tearful face. Alice went close to him as they started walking to opposite direction.

The she saw him, only for a second.

Joey leaned against a tree, further away so no one could see him. The gentle breeze blowing against his hair as he stared across at Kristen's casket. She hadn't spoken to him since that night.

He was there, he knew…

Rick kept her walking as Alice looked at him one last time. They caught eyes for a second and then he was gone.

One left…


	11. it was real

It had almost been two weeks since Kristen had died.

Alice no longer felt like herself, somehow deep inside she felt as if part of her missing, but at the same time replaced. The arguments with Rick seemed never ending as he did his mourning off to his own, trying to convince her that it was all just in her head. Kristen wasn't crazy…she was just scared since some strange shit was going on with her, and if he hadn't of let her go…he wouldn't of lost her.

He had lost the love of his life, and she had just lost her best friend in the whole world. Thinking about it made Alice sick to her stomach. She knew something had happened, or in fact was going on…that Kristen knew she was going to die, and whatever his monster's name was, Freddy? He had killed Kincaid and her.

She felt so strange…as if Kristen was still with her.

But life still went on as always, the group seemed a little distant at first, but Rick must of explained to all of them ahead of time how hard she was taking it, so everything they spoke to her, they talked as if they were dealing with a ticking time bomb.

The worst thing was…she hadn't been sleeping well.

At first she thought it was all because of the shock of it all, but something about that nightmare, something about the heat and the smoke and how real it all felt, she knew it had really happened.

Rick just couldn't believe her.

She slept off and on, but most of the time she couldn't stand to even doze off for even a few moments for the chance of whatever she did see that night would come back to her. As crazy as it sounded somehow the smell of Kristen's burning flesh wouldn't leave her nose. It drove so crazy that one night she locked herself in the bathroom and cried for hours.

Just seventeen and she felt helpless, worst then when her mother died.

Coffee and working extra shifts tried to keep her going, but almost every second she felt herself nodding off, her eyelids feeling like brick walls as she drifted off for only a few moments before snapping back awake.

She hadn't seen Joey since the day of the funeral. In fact after work one day she went to his house and asked his mother if she could talk to him.

She said Joey wasn't feeling to well and didn't want to be disturbed. Alice could see the worried look in her eye…two close friends of her son who went to the same hospital were now dead.

She knew he had been skipping school, in fact no one had really seen him, not even at baseball practice. She was starting to worry, she knew what had happened was real and since Joey was there she knew he would be able to tell her finally the truth.

He had left so quick when the police arrived at Kristen's house that night, but she had seen his eyes. He looked terrified.

He was the last….

Biting her lip Mrs. Henderson past out the test papers. Sighing she knew that she hadn't studied, and more then likely Rick and her would flunk. Most of the time she kept average grades…but now she had far to much to worry about.

Looking around everyone started on the papers, Alice started to think about her bed, how soft and warm it must of felt just then, her head went down once, twice, and then she shut her eyes.

Shelia who sat beside her did the same


	12. Just wake up

"Shelia wake up!"

The words rang through her head as she watched the paramedics load the stretcher into the back cab. Students watched gathered in small crowds speaking in low voices about who was it, and what happened.

Kincaid and Kristen's death had all ready spread across school, much like all of the other teenagers who had died over the past few years. But it had never hit this close before.

"Fatal asthma…what seventeen year old dies of fatal asthma, thought she was going to be a doctor."

Debbie stood with the others, holding back tears as she watched the ambulance pull slowly out of the parking-lot.

Rick stood beside Alice who shook on the inside.

"It was Freddy…"

"Enough of that crap!"

"It was real, I fell asleep and I dragged Shelia in…"

It then dawned on her, she had fallen asleep and just like Kristen had with her, she took her into the dream…she pulled her in without even knowing.

"Oh God…I pulled Shelia in, oh no…"

Rick tried to take hold of her.

Alice knew it, just like Kristen did…she had pulled Shelia in without even knowing it. Maybe because she was so tried, maybe because she was scared, or maybe just because she thought of her before drifting off into class.

She watched the whole thing happen and couldn't stop it.

She killed Shelia.

"NO I TOOK HER IN AND NOW SHE'S DEAD!"

Tears exploded through her large bluish tint eyes and she ran away from Rick as fast as she could.

"Kristen's story is really getting to her…"

Debbie said in a lower voice, now looking down at her boots.

"Hey I don't even know if it's a story, I mean look we're dropping like flies here."

Rick ran to join his sister.

Debbie looked around and saw everyone was starting to get back to class. By the end of the day there would be an announcement and a moment of silence. After that people would talk for a while, recounting of they knew her or not, or if they were there when it happened. Then that would be it.

Shelia…she was the best out of all of them.

Feeling a slight chill Debbie turned around and headed for class.

Another week past after Shelia, and people were starting to feel nervous.

One boy dies of a heart attack.

One girl burns to death in her bedroom.

One girl dies from an asthma attack.

As easy as it was to label these as accidents, people who had been around Springwood long enough to remember started to get uneasy about all of this.

Joey hardly showed up for school, nor his home anymore…once in a while people would see him driving around, that was it.

Alice blamed herself, looking at the photos that covered her mirror of her friends. Everything was falling apart and she knew she couldn't sleep. Someone else might die.

Rick was there for her, now almost starting to believe her story. He stayed up with her, drinking coffee, splashing cold water on their faces, and just plain holding each other and talking about better times they shared together. Back when they were happy.

Not sleeping was killing her.

Working double shifts she found herself feeling worse then she ever had. But somehow Sheila's poor scared face as that monster killed her replayed over and over in her mind.

She wished she could just talk to Joey once…and see what were they going to do, and how to stop it.

But she hadn't seen him in weeks, and she knew he blamed himself for his friend's deaths as she had.

On Tuesday Alice walked into class feeling like a zombie, taking a seat and saw they were reviewing for finals.

She hadn't been talking much since everything had happened, looking around at the other students she started to feel as if the teacher's words started to slush together as her eyelids fluttered and she lowered her head on her desk.

"There's a positive gate, and a negative…the protector of the positive gate is a person called the dream master…"

Alice started to remember the rhyme again.

"Now I lay me down to sleep…"

And with that her eyes snapped shut.

Across the school in the locker rooms her brother Rick did the same.


	13. Needed to stay awake

It had almost been three weeks since Kincaid and Kristen had died.

For these past three weeks Joey found himself not being able to cope anymore, depressed and scared out of his mind he stopped showing up to school. Between the "That's him" looks, and what Alice might end up saying, he knew it was smarter for everyone if he just stayed away.

He hardly showed up at his house anymore, in fact the last time he was around was maybe five days ago when both weren't home. He knew they had called around and heard from other people they saw his car driving around town. But they weren't going to call the police or even take giant steps to go looking for him.

Back two years ago, when the nightmares started to happen and he was committed for his "Own well being" as his mother put it. He had started to ditch school and just wander around in a daze trying to stay away until his accident happen and he was locked away to the hospital, with little chance of surviving.

That bastard had taken his voice and his childhood along with the others. They had fought him…how could he have come back?

He knew soon or later he would have to face this head on, he had seen Alice in the dream when Kristen had taken them in, and he knew what had happened.

Yesterday he had heard about that girl Shelia…what was happening?

Freddy could only touch him right? Because he was the last.

No…what happened was an accident, but for the others he knew what had really happened, and now he was all alone.

As for Alice he didn't know if she was safe or not, but he was almost certain that Freddy could only get him, and as along as he stayed away from everyone they would be safe. Sitting upright in his car, parked in the back of the drug store's parking-lot he saw he needed a shave and a shower. Dark circles hung down low under his dark brown bloodshot eyes, and he saw his color draining.

Back in Western Hills there were limits to how you could stay awake. They didn't let them have caffeine, or anything to stay awake…in fact their main goal was to piss you off enough to sedate you, much like Kincaid always ended up getting done to. So like the others, who all knew this was a test to stay alive he worked out systems. His roommate Will and him would take shifts, two hours one would stay awake and watch the other, then switch. It was broken sleep but it seemed to be working and keeping them alive.

Will was a good friend, somehow much like the others they looked at Joey like he was just one of them, and had the same things on the line, like his life.

At fifteen, sixteen years old they were fighters, trying their best to help each other and staying awake, banning together to try and convince the doctors and adults that they weren't crazy…they wanted to live.

Joey knew half of the kids in the hospital before they went in. All were normal good kids that he hung out with, then one night he feel asleep and started to dream of that house.

He remembered walking from room to room when the dim lights flickered, and then Freddy came out before him and took him by the throat, rising him slowly off the ground as his feet swung back and forth kicking as he choked for air.

Freddy's long silver claws went to his throat and then he woke up, his mouth opened wide trying to scream as only breathless sounds made it out. He had a panic attack as his parents rushed in and they tried to calm him down.

He found out that night he couldn't speak.

He was rushed to the hospital and it looked as if he suffered a trauma, or a deep shock to have taken his voice like it did. His mother kept telling the doctors and nurses that it was all in Joey's head and he would just snap out of it. But no matter how much he tried he couldn't speak.

He wrote down to his parents what he saw in his dream, he remembered the looks on their faces and how they took a walk outside his hospital room, talking in low voices.

He was committed the next week with very little to "say" about the matter. His parents thought this could protect him and be the best choice for him. All ready the suicides and deaths were happening in town, in fact some kids Joey knew had died that month.

At first he thought it was the end of the world, but every time he feel asleep he saw the man, and came close to being killed. In fact one the man sliced his arm with his claws before he was woken up by one of the nurses…the cut was still there, but no one believed him as they did with the others.

No one believed them, and somehow the fear of even shutting for eyes for the second maybe in a small way really did drive them crazy.

But when Kristen and Nancy came into his life they fought as a team, those awful memories of being caught in that hell and not being able to wake up.

Then they saved him…

His friends.

Many had died and given up their life's to live, and it was a chance to start over. The dreams stopped…but Kristen knew.

He could saved her.

Those awful cries as he burned to death, her big blue eyes filling with tears as he looked at him, and Freddy laughed.

It couldn't be possible.

No, he couldn't do this…not alone.

His life was crumbling around him and there was nothing he could do about it.

He remembered Nancy, how she has saved him holding his hand as tight as she could. What he would do to have her with him right now.

He thought about it, maybe if he stayed awake, maybe before anyone caught on he would visit Dr. Gordon, who was living a few states over after he lost his medical license after the scandal. He did tell them all that he loved them as if they were his own, and anytime they ever needed him they could go.

Maybe since he had been there, maybe he would know what to do.

He knew if he even shut his eyes for a second he would die.

Snapping awake again he turned up his radio and took a handful of caffeine pills with a can of coke. If it came to it he would start cutting his arm to stay awake.

With blurry eyes he saw the diner, school wouldn't let out in another hour or so. He had been watching Alice go into work everyday…in fact he had been working a lot lately. Maybe tonight he would go see her and say that he was leaving town.

Sighing he rubbed his face and took a deep breath.

He needed to stay awake.


	14. Shattered

Alice woke up with a snap, she felt as if sharp blades entered her all at once. The impact was so strong she flew backwards in her seat.

She knew…her brother was dead.

"NOOOOOO!"

She pounded her fists against the desk, making everyone snap around and look, just then all the windows in the classroom, almost from the volume of Alice's voice shattered. There were screams as millions of pieces flew everywhere.

At that exact moment parked in the drugstore parking-lot Joey snapped awake, almost as if he had heard Alice's screams. The sound of Alice's hopeless cry filled the air and Joey saw part of his windshield crack.

Stunned he blinked and touched the silver line which now appeared on the lower half of his windshield.

Touching it he knew something bad had happened.

Just then something warm dribbled down his face, touching it and saw in his rearview mirror his nose was gushing.

He had only been asleep for about four minutes, drifting in and out from the sounds of cars passing by.

He had remembered back that night in Western Hills. Will and Taryn had been playing Dungeons and Dragons in their room, it was close to lights out and Taryn was having a can of coke and a cigarette.

Taryn had been good to him, in fact when she first came in she seemed moody with everyone until she noticed Joey didn't talk. From time to time in the TV room during the day when she was catching a smoke she would find Joey sitting alone reading and talk to him, mostly complain about then nursing staff and Sims. Joey of course never answered, but he listened and nodded from time to time, making Taryn laugh. In fact she gave him his first cigarette, but after a few horses coughs and wheezes, Taryn laughed slapping him on the back saying maybe it wasn't for him.

The game ended when she went to bed and Max came in to tell them it was lights out. In the darkness of the room both decided that Joey would have first shift. During this time he sat in the chair that looked out the window which was wired up so no one would be stupid to break and glass and try to climb out.

He watched Will every few minutes as he slept in his bed, and tried passing through a book to make the next two hours go by quick. Then he saw for a second…Phillip?

Panic rose inside him as he looked again and knew he was seeing was real. He raced to wake up Will and went to go get help. The nurse wasn't being any so he got the others and joined them at the window, banging as the others screamed for him to stop.

Watching Phillip die it brought almost a different cast of light on what was happening, it scared him to death since he could have been next.

Holding his bloody nose with the back of one hand he knew he needed to talk to Alice before it was to late.


	15. Lost ones

"It happens, rare but happens."

"How could this of happened, he was only seventeen."

"I'm sorry Mr. Johnson, but a thin wall in the boy's brain collapses, causing the blood clot to form, it couldn't of gone detected for years…he could of even been born with it."

"There was nothing anyone could of done?"

"I'm sorry…but no."

Alice stood beside Debbie and twenty other people at Rick's funeral. His dark sunglasses shielding her tears as she clutched onto his bandana. Her twin brother, her best friend in the world, her protector was dead.

She had taken him in.

The priest read out the final passage as everyone said their good-byes to her father, who had taken all of this in utter shock, and went to the bottle to recover.

She couldn't take it in herself…everyone she loved was dying.

Rick, her brother…her only brother who was always there for her. The boy she loved with all her heart, who had been there from the start and was dead.

Looking at the coffin she thought of him getting out of it as if it was some big prank, joking like he always had done. Walking over and telling her how he wouldn't of left her.

"No more day dreams…"

She choked under her breath as he disappeared.

It was time to grow up…something was happening and she was the only one to stop it.

Her brother, the only person who meant the most to her was now gone.

Snapping out of it Debbie walked with her across the graveyard.

"Are you okay?"

"Not really…"

Debbie sighed.

"I believe you…I really do."

Alice looked at her though as nails friend and knew she was just as scared as she was.

"I'm the only one who can stop it."

"That's bullshit, we all have to survive…I don't spend hours at the gym so some night stalker can beat me!"

Alice tried to smile, as the aching pain in her heart throbbed louder and louder.

"You don't really get it, he's not a night stalker and it will take more then bench presses to beat him…"

Debbie tried to smile back when they heard her name be called out.

"Alice?"

Alice and Debbie turned and saw Joey standing there, dressed in a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. Having stopped by his house an hour before he was able to get a fresh chance of clothes and shower and shave. Somehow that had helped him feel more awake.

His eyes looked terrible.

She knew he hadn't been sleeping either.

He had heard about Rick and knew this was time to stop hiding.

Slowly walked by to the two girls, almost not being able to look them in the eye.

"Can we talk?"

Debbie eyed them and then looked at Alice.

"Hey I'll call you tonight…"

"Yeah sure…"

"Here, take this…"

Alice opened her hand as Debbie placed one of her famous spiked bracelets into her hand.

Smiling they hugged each other and Debbie only nodded at Joey before turning and walking away.

As she did so, she noticed something was different about Alice…something so strange it reminded her of Kristen, Shelia, and Rick all at the same time. It was as if she changed…or changed after every death.

Leaving the two of them alone they just stood there for a while looking at each other.

"Why didn't you come earlier?"

"There wouldn't of been anything I could of done."

"That's bullshit and you know it."

Hate was rising in her voice, never before had she thought she could speak this way to someone.

"You were in the dream with me, you know this is real."

Joey looked at her.

"Tell me everything…"

They looked at each other hard for a moment and then Joey nodded.

"Come on…"

Alice started to cry a little, slow tears rolling down her face and she still tried to stare at him, showing she wasn't weak.

He took her hand and brought her close as they started walking towards the car.


	16. I'll go

By the time the sun started to set over the trees in the park, Alice somehow felt as if everything she had learned or known in her life was now shattered.

The sky was giving off a rather dull glare of an orange and bluish tint as the night sky started to take over, and a wall breeze was blowing by from the open windows in the car. Alice turned towards it thankful from her dozing feeling that was yet again starting to tingle behind her eyelids and looked back at Joey who had been talking for the last two hours or so.

He had told her everything like she had asked. From the little history he knew about Krueger, to how he was committed to Western Hills and how Kristen, Kincaid, and the others held him defeat him.

It was real, everything between what was happening, and what took place in the past. As far fetched and as unbelievable as it all was Alice knew it was true. Everyone she once cared for or loved was now gone.

Both had time to level and talk, Joey blamed himself for everyone's death…most of all Kristen and Kincaid's. He felt as if he could of done something, even if both of them knew that wasn't true at all. He tried to describe and tell her as much as he could as they both sat there trying to figure one thing at a time.

His remains were Dr. Gordon had buried him were still in the junkyard, Joey had checked himself and as far as he knew they hadn't been disturbed. The possibility that he came back from Kristen feeding him energy off her fear of him coming back could have been one. But both had decided that most likely Freddy had returned to finish off what he had started.

Joey told Alice once he had tried to bring up the subject to his parents about Krueger or the murders that took place when he was still just a baby. Like a sickness and like every other parent in Springwood, they pretended as if it never happened and blamed Joey as if he was crazy for thinking such things.

He only had Joey left to kill…and as far as he knew Freddy could only get to him since he was the last. Then how was everyone else dying.

Alice said maybe, Freddy was using Alice to will Kristen's power to bring him more children so he could get stronger to kill Joey since he's been staying awake this whole time.

It made sense.

But how could they stop him?

Joey really felt helpless, everyone around him were dying or didn't believe him, everyone other then Alice. He knew Kristen meant well to give Alice her power, in fact it could be the reason she had been staying alive this whole time being able to pull herself in and out as she did.

But Freddy was using her, and Joey could feel him getting closer.

Alice broke down a little, wiping her tears and telling him how sorry she was for acting this way. Joey stared at her and could only gaze at her beautiful gentle face sitting beside her in his car.

She had been through so much, and loosing her bother was pushing her over the edge.

He gave her one of his caffeine pills and tried to sooth her the best he could. Looking up feeling her insides shake she asked if he had a plan.

"Hypnocil."

"What?"

"Hypnocil…it was this drug they gave us in Western Hills, supposed to suppress dream activity in the brain, we all took it."

"It makes you not dream?"

Joey nodded.

"It was experimental…we were only on it for a few months, they took it off the market as soon as the murders stopped and we were released from the hospital."

"Do you know where we can get some…maybe that could be it, no dreams…he can't get us."

"Only one man as far as I know might have them, and he might be come as some help, I was going to leave and go see him tonight."

"Who?"

"Dr. Gordon, the doctor I was telling you about, he was there when it happened in Western Hills."

"So he knows…"

"Yeah, he lives a state over…I think he might be some help, he knows what happened."

"Are you really going to go see him?"

"If there's even a thin chance he has those pills I'm taking it….I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me?"

"What?"

"Alice…you need to stay alive…"

She understood what he meant, but leave?

"When?"

"Tonight…dawn maybe."

Alice bit her lip and looked out the window at the peaceful town which laid before her. She had heard and understood everything and as far as she knew maybe this drug idea might not be that bad of an idea. Both had to survive and as long and she didn't dream no one else would die.

"I'll go…"

She turned and looked him in the eye.


	17. What's happening to me?

Alice dropped her house keys onto the wooden table which sat in the narrow hallway of the front of the house. The sound of them made a clinking noise which seemed to sound out through the whole empty house.

It was around seven and she knew her father wasn't coming home tonight. He mumbled something about keeping the doors locked tonight and how he was going out for a while. Like always she knew what this meant, but today he had buried his only son, he would drink tonight and for once she wouldn't judge him.

Joey stepped in behind her as she headed for the kitchen, a large brown bag in her hands. Joey looked around the rather small home and saw on the mantel place there were three framed photos of Alice and Rick together growing up. As much as he didn't care for Rick he knew Alice loved him and from the looks of it he was a good brother. Looking at the photographs and sighing he knew how more life's would be ruined forever and never be the same.

When he joined Alice in the kitchen she had turned on the overhead light and had started a fresh pot of coffee. Dumping the brown bag over on the kitchen table about twelve packets of caffeine pills spilled out along with a jar of coffee crystals and two cans of coke. Both had stopped by the drug store being going home.

Their plan was that they would leave tomorrow, dawn almost and head straight to the main highway. It would take almost a full day's worth tops and then track down Dr. Gordon's address.

From there they had no idea…but somehow there was little hope. As long as they didn't dream, no one else would die.

Feeling tried Alice looked across at Joey who stuck his hands in his pockets and smiled for a second, something she never thought she would do.

Both were five shades pale of their regular skin color, and their eyes bugged out from the dark sockets with broken blood vessels.

Sorting things out she sighed making a small weak laugh as he helped her.

"If this doesn't work we'll just slap each other…that seems to work."

Joey looked up for a second and gave a small huff that showed he was amused and went back to sorting things apart. By the time the coffee was done both sat across from each other, feeling weaker then ever. Alice hoped Joey would be okay to drive in the morning.

Looking at him she wished things had stayed the same a month ago…back when she was in her own little world behind Rick and Kristen, and how she had day dreamed about Joey taking notice of her one day. Now here they were…funny how life worked out.

Both talked here and there, until Joey sighed.

"I bet if I die he'll no longer have a reason to do this…he'll stop once I'm gone."

"What?"

"Freddy…I'm the last, once I'm dead his job is finished…maybe…"

"No Joey, your important, you can't leave me alone…"

She felt tears starting to build behind her eyes, sighing she pushed her seat aside.

"I'm going upstairs to change…I'll be back in a few minutes."

Without looking back at him she hurried upstairs fighting off the tears as she entered her dim lit room, the back window open letting the curtains blow back and forth. Sighing she went to her dresser and pulled open the first draw.

Rick's numb chucks laid there.

She had taken them after her father drove her back from the hospital…after they learned Rick was dead.

"Mind over Matter…"

Picking up the numb chucks she looked up at the mirror, most of her photographs of her friends and Rick were no longer there. Looking at her reflection she felt something inside her she never felt before.

She could hear Rick…she could feel him.

Looking at them in her hand before she saw them nothing more then Rick's…something amazing he could do which was another reason to look up to him.

She swung them slowly to the side and stopped.

He wanted her to survive…she needed to survive.

She swung them back and looked up at her reflection.

Without thinking she started to swing them back and forth, first slowly then faster and faster as the started to gain speed. They went back and forth against her body like lighting and from the looks of it in the mirror it felt and looked as if she held nothing but air.

Finally she stopped and felt scared to death…before she couldn't even pick those things up.

Looking now at her wide blue eyes it dawned on her…she used to have green eyes, Kristen was the one with blue eyes.

"What's happening to me?"

She asked out loud shaking.

"Alice?"

Alice turned feeling her heart jump into her chest and saw Joey standing in the doorway, checking on her. She prayed to God he hadn't of seen her.

"Joey…'

Her voice feel silent and then the tears came, bursting out one after another.

He went to her as she buried her face in his shirt, sobbing and crying away at all the life's that had been taken. She felt so scared, so alone, but so strange at the same time. It felt as if they were all still with her.

She remembered Joey had told her in the car about his voice and how in that dream he had, the mirrors shattered…she then looked back on how she made the windows break in the classroom.

Looking up at him she met his eyes and kissed him


	18. No longer a child

Alice caught Joey off guard as she took his face in her hands and forced him to kiss her as hard as he could. For this being her first kiss it really didn't feel, nor look like it as she opened and closed her mouth, not being able to control the feelings that were going through her just then.

One hand went around the back of his neck, the other through his hair as she kissed him again, panting for breath as she looked into his eyes as he brought her closer.

Her eyes now looked just like Kristen's, completely changed now as she stared at him. This wasn't Alice by a long shot, never in a million years would she think of doing such things. But just then, just at that moment she felt as if being with him would numb this terrifying pain which stuck her heart so deep. Pressing her forehead against his she started to feel her heart pound inside her chest. Both took deep breath around the darkened silence of the room and then kissed again.

Both fell backwards onto Alice's bed, his hair hung down over her and he smiled. Reaching up for him she brought all his weight now onto her as she started to kiss him again, over and over, almost not being able to control herself.

"Wait…wait, go slow…"

He brought his head up again, brushing away his hair this time so she could see his face better. Moonlight and the reflection of her fish tank casted cool blue beams of light against them laying there. She licked her lips and looked at him again, shaking a little inside now that she knew what she wanted to do.

Everyone she loved was now gone, all she had left was him, and at this exact moment she knew how much she loved him, and how she wouldn't ever let him out of her sight again. This was their war, and they were going to fight it side by side.

Joey's thoughts as he looked down at her was only pure hope. He had been scared…everything that had worked for, everyone who had died, was now almost a waste. He couldn't let Freddy win again…he had to make sure Alice was safe before he found a way to stop him…he was the last and this was his problem, but he couldn't let him touch her…no he needed to protect her.

She started for his jeans, trying not to take her eyes off him as she undid the button and started with the zipper. He felt himself start to shake as he excitement started to show in him. Breathing heavy he slowly started to lift up her shirt, she looked at him one last time and thought for a moment.

It was meant to be…the warrior and the survivor, both were the same.

And just as the full silver glazed moon rose over Springwood's darkened and worried sky, Sheriff Anderson was talking to Lt. Jarvis about the closed files on Springwood. Debbie sat in her gym weeping to herself over her friends, rubbing her face knowing something was going on, and both Alice and Joey knew.

Kristen's mother was driving out of town to Marquette's airfield, where she would fly to her beach house up the cape for the rest of the year. Her house now being looked after by her house cleaner and a few neighbors. Just a few days ago the work men finished gutting out what was left of Kristen's room…the smell of burned flesh still in the air, almost to the point it made Kristen's mother sick That along with the decision with her ex husband she knew by the fall the house would be put up for sale.

How did she know about him…how? She thought as she kept driving off into the night. "How did they all know…I was there, I saw him get killed." With a flash of her headlights she was gone.

The moon washed over all the lonely graves of the many who were lost to this entity. Tombstones and grave markers showing all many youths, taken so soon from either natural causes…or accidents.

One that stood out the most was a marker that read… Nancy Thompson. She had won the battle with everyone else…but now it was up to Alice and Joey to win the war.

Joey raised his head, snapping his eyes shut as Alice clung to him, digging her nails into his back almost to the point to draw blood. Both were covered in a waxy sheet of sweat and felt on the verge of tears as the moon started to drift away from Alice's bedroom window. Laying there and holding him she cried out knowing she was no longer a child anymore.


	19. Don't let me sleep

Lt. Jarvis crossed his arms as he sat in his office of the police station. It was getting late and tonight he was working the graveyard shift…so far there wasn't much action, not even some trouble down town near one of the bars, no tonight everything seemed peaceful.

"Lieutenant…I just don't think this should be something we just sit on."

"Anderson, you're a young kid who's always ready to have his guns blazing."

"Four deaths in one month, come on Joe, there has to be a reason for…"

"What did it say on the books, three were medical causes and one was a simple accident, nothing more…let it rest."

"You of all people should know Springwood isn't know as the best place to grow up as a teenager, come on!"

Jarvis leaned forward, he could only take so much."

"Lower your voice buddy…you know I was around when everything happened, but that's in the past, Springwood is a normal town…it's a small town, nothing big happens in small towns!"

"Yeah, well what happened a few years ago?"

"A bunch of teenagers had a suicide pact, we lost a lot of good kids but that's over and done with."

"I feel like there's a connection between what's going on, why does it start up every few years?"

"Do you want to spread a godamm panic?" "I was working on the force same as you, and I've seen what happened…but all I do know is the only reason it happens to these young kids is because something funny is going on around them, and as far as I know if we start bringing this shit up it might start again."

"It all ready has…"

"Then go ahead and open the files, see what I care, but I'm telling you now Anderson, it's only trouble your looking for, and plenty of people of town have ended up the same way Thompson's family did when you let it take over you…let it rest."

Anderson didn't need another word from him, turning he headed down for the basement. Grabbing a cold cup of coffee he knew he was in for a long night.

Across town Alice had locked herself in her bathroom for almost a half an hour now as Joey kept snapping awake in her bed as he drifted in and out of nodding off. Alice had taken the sheets with her, wrapped around her like a prom dress she got up before he could even say anything. She was too embarrassed to really look him in the eye now. Now all alone with the sink running she looked up at her very pale reflection.

She had done it…she had lost her virginity. Almost stunned to even think it she splashed some cold water on herself and felt her insides ache for a completely different reason then before. Having stuffed the sheets in the hamper she put her bathrobe around her and kept rubbing her face.

No it wasn't a dream…it had really happened.

Reaching into one of the draws by the sink she took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one as she leaned against the tile walls. She knew she didn't smoke, but somehow for the last week or so before Rick had even happened she felt the urge too.

Taking a deep drag she smiled a little.

Joey meanwhile laid under the covers looking towards the bathroom door with a nervous eye.

"Maybe she feel asleep?"

He thought about knocking, but knew maybe she wanted some time alone, he knew what happened and for a girl this maybe was a touchy subject. Laying his head back against her headboard he took a deep breath in and looked around her room.

He wasn't a virgin anymore.

He had finally done it.

Thinking back on the subject he remembered he lied to Kincaid early this year after one of his big hockey games. He told Kincaid, trying to be cool that he fooled around with one of the cheerleaders. Almost afraid to let big old tough Kincaid know that he was still a virgin…and didn't want to loose it to just anyone.

He knew how queer that sounded, and how really embarrassed he really should be, but somehow for the past hour or so…everything he built it up to be, and everything he thought things would be like, ended up being perfect.

He liked Alice…in fact over the past few weeks he couldn't stop thinking about her. She wasn't just some girl…something was different about her and he knew this feeling wouldn't go away.

They were all each other had left, and he wasn't about to let anyone touch her.

Just then the door opened, he glanced and saw her step out before flicking the bathroom light off. For a second he thought he shouldn't of looked, but she gave a weak smile towards him, and somehow that made it better.

"Hey…"

His voice croaked feeling thick.

"Hey."

She walked towards her side of the bed and pulled back the covers and got back in. It was awkward just then. Joey watched her settle in and then slip her robe off and fling it to the floor. She was now naked under there with him, she got closer and looked at him through the darkness.

"I love you."

Joey wanted to slap himself for sounding so stupid, he knew how much of an act that must of sounded too her.

But all she did was smile, leaning close and kissing him softly against his lips.

"I love you too."

They kissed again before she rested her head on his chest and lessened to his heartbeat. He looked down at her, almost scared as if she might break and gently brushed back some of her beautiful red hair back.

"Don't let me sleep…"

She said in a soft voice, spacing out as she looked out the windows where she heard the crickets chirp. He looked down at her and then out the window where the light against the dark sky danced across his eyes.

"Don't worry…I won't."


	20. Connection

Anderson looked at the clock which was mounted on the brick wall beside him and sighed. In another hour it would be sunrise and most likely is wife had all ready left at least three messages at the desk upstairs, asking whenever he was coming home or not.

Rubbing his tried eyes he thought of Sally and how he rather be snuggled up close to her in his bed when sitting down here trying to figure this shit up.

He had stacks of files around him and it just seemed until now he was starting to link things up. Writing down notes in his notebook he kept tapping his pencil against his lips trying to figure out what he was thinking went somewhere.

He knew it all circled around this Freddy Krueger character.

Murdered twenty-three kids to be exact around the years 1960 to 1966 when he was arrested. Flipping through never ending clippings of the trial and case he frowned at all the ageing photographs of children that would have been in their late twenties now…the thought of Sally and him all ready talking about starting a family sent chills down his spine. What if they were married back then, what if their child got killed?

Shaking his head he wrote down another line of notes with his felt-tip pen and kept reading.

One of the sealed records he was now able to read showed that Krueger had been married to a young waitress named Loretta Wood. She was only thirty when they raided Krueger's home and found her decomposing body hidden in the basement.

His daughter, Kathryn who was only six at the time was seized and taken into foster care where she was adoption only a month later. As in where she was now…well those files were kept private at the agency where she was taken to. Anyways Anderson knew more then likely she wouldn't even want to help of the chance was offered to her.

The trail lasted for almost five months straight, when the courts found that a search warrant was not signed correctly when they raided his workshop at the power plant and with very little help from the judge, Krueger was released.

He then disappeared and later was said to have died in a fire which broke out on a small part of the power plant, where he was last seen a week or so after he was released.

After that, almost like magic Anderson noticed a huge rise in birth announcements in the old newspapers that carried the remains of what happened to Fred Krueger. Most of them being the parents who had lost children due to these crimes.

"It was as if they wanted to start over…get a fresh start." Anderson thought as he found Lt. Thompson's daughter's. Nancy Lynn Thompson, born on July 1st, to Marge Thompson and Springwood's Lt. Thompson of the Springwood police department. Mother and child are doing fine. Anderson looked at the young baby's photo and then went on to the next file.

Things seemed peaceful for almost fifteen or so years when the murders started…

Tina Gray, age fifteen…murdered in the spring of 81 by her boyfriend Rod Lane, age sixteen. Anderson remembered that mess…it had been the first murder since the whole Krueger trial and stunned the small town. Less then a week or so later Mr. Lane killed himself in his jail cell…he was there when that happened to.

On paper it seemed almost like it had happened before, in fact just a simple case of a young person's love gone wrong…even in small towns it could happen. But then at the end of the week it happened.

Glen Lantz, age sixteen…murdered.

He hadn't been there that night, but he had heard the stories. From what the file said perhaps a homeless person, or maybe someone who had a few drinks in them downtown had broken into the Lantz's household while the parents were in the den having coffee. It was around midnight when this happened and Mrs. Lantz went to go check on her son when she found the entire room covered in blood. In her own words on the statement before she had a nervous breakdown, she told the police it was like a geyser of blood spraying up from her son's bed.

The police couldn't find anyway how this person broke in, since the father stated his son's door was locked from the outside, and all the windows were shut and locked hours before hand. Also the fact that a young boy who worked out from sports was murdered without any form of struggle?

They found his body, drained of blood and from the morgue's report they stated that four long claw marks where found on the boy's chest…as if something tore him to shreds.

The police hadn't ever seen anything like this before.

The Lantz's put their house up for sale soon afterwards and were never heard from again.

Very little about Lt. Thompson's daughter made it into the papers. Anderson could see why they wanted to cover that up. Around that time his daughter Nancy, who was somehow stuck in the middle of all this had a mental breakdown.

Her best friend was Tina Gray, in fact her and her boyfriend Glen Lantz were sleeping over the night she was murdered…they were the ones who found the body.

She was there yet again when Rod Lane killed himself, and kept swearing to her father that he was innocent and claimed that a man by the name of Krueger did it. Anderson heard very little about what happened but knew his daughter pretty much drove herself crazy and witnessed her boyfriend's murder from across the street through her bedroom window. Her father tried to question her about it but by then she was gone to far, and sent out of state when her mother committed suicide a month later from an overdose in their living room.

He knew she was treated at some care center, and the house was put up for sale…before the end of the year Lt. Thompson quit the force.

The next clipping he found was almost five years later…five whole years of peace. Finally 1428 Elm Street had been bought by a nice family by the name of Walsh. Rumors went around that their teenage son Jessie was suffering from the same nightmares Nancy Thompson had. In that month there had only been two murders.

One was a local gym teacher, who was found in the school's locker room. There were no evidence nor witnesses to claim anything. Only that when they searched his apartment down town they found a stash of child pornography. Very little was dealed with that case after that. And almost a week later a young high school student was found murdered his bedroom…no witnesses.

A few high school students started talk of the Walsh kid acting strange, and how they over heard him saying how he dreamed of killing a bunch of kids at a local party that was held. Before the police could ask any questions the bus crash happened. Killing thirteen students when it ran off the road.

The Walsh family moved out by the end of the next year.

That's when it started.

Twenty-nine kids…exact as he read from the numbers were found dead in the years of early 1986 to 1987. Twelve of this teenagers were suicides. Police began to suspect maybe a cult or a drug problem starting. Most of these kids all suffered from the same thing….They were all scared to fall asleep and would do anything to stay awake.

Ten of the teenagers were ruled as accidents. This meant car crashes, accidents at home, either drowning in their bathtub, falling down the stairs, ect. Were all written off as nothing more then bad luck.

It seemed like a virus that spread around the town…all claiming the same thing. That a man in their dreams were trying to kill them. The town did as much as they could…which meant locking them away in Western Hills.

They were treated, and two were dead by the end of the first month as accidents in the hospital.

Then came the scandal. Five dead at Western Hills.

Nancy Thompson had moved back to Springwood a few years before the suicides started up. She kept a low profile but had gone off to school and was now doing an internship at Western Hills for the remainder of the year. She had gone off to become a grad student and seemed to be doing from what one clipping said, ground breaking research on pattern nightmares.

She was working on a special wing which focused on a small group of youths that were all suffering from the same symptoms. Three of them being Kristen Parker, Roland Kincaid, and Joey Crusel.

In just one week there had been two deaths.

Both were ruled as suicide.

Then on the 11th of that month, the Crusel boy went into a coma.

Anderson did his reading of Crusel and he found that earlier that year he had began to suffer the same pattern nightmares and was ruled autistic when he entered the hospital for the program.

The coma was ruled as the direct result of the use of Hypnocil, an experimenter drug which wasn't even released on the market to suppress dream activity in the brain. The head doctor on the staff Dr. Neil Gordon and Nancy Thompson had subscribed the drug to the kids.

Both were relived of their duty for the time being at the hospital…and the next morning it happened.

YOUTHS FOUND DEAD IN WESTERN HILL

The headline read, Anderson read further as he found out what had happened less then a year or so ago.

One of the staff members found Nancy Thompson dead in a room with two other teenagers. The cause of death was written down was heart failure. Most people said Nancy had killed the two teens and then herself as a mass suicide.

Only Roland Kincaid survived, and claimed that Nancy had nothing to do with the deaths, in fact she was there to help them. He of course was brushed off as some crazy kid looking for attention. That same day Crusel woke up from his coma.

They stayed in Western Hills only a month more before they were finally ruled out as sane and around that time the deaths had stopped. Anderson could see that Western Hills had a great deal with covering the whole thing up. But as simple as it was, they said Nancy was the cause of all of this, and was sent down to her grave at the age of twenty-two as a murderer.

Her father, a man who Anderson had looked up to his whole life was found dead in a local junk yard a day or so later.

They said he must of gotten himself into a drunken brawl and got killed. Due to all the heat the hospital was getting that was matter was buried faster then he was.

Then that was it. Parker, Kincaid, and Crusel were sent back to their normal life's. And everything seemed okay.

Now somehow, it seemed to have started up again.

Kincaid was dead, and so wasn't Parker.

They all claimed that the same person was trying to kill them, they had stayed at Western Hills together, they took the same drug, and they had survived.

Four deaths in less then a month…as much as the department wanted to rule it out as accidents Anderson knew it wasn't.

Why was Crusel still around, and all ready his mother had filled out a report claming her son hadn't come home in weeks now. A few changes of clothes were missing from his room and she said most likely he stopped by the house whenever they weren't home.

She was starting to worry to now.

His car had been seen around, but even now his highs cool reported that he hadn't been to class since this all started.

His mother was worried sick that something was going on between all of his friends. Anderson knew Jarvis, and just about everyone else were raising their eyebrows and now leaning towards him as maybe a reason some of these things had happened.

He had been in a mental hospital…and he was now losing his friends like flies.

Jarvis told the boys to keep an APB on him in case he was seen anymore around town.

Anderson looked at the clock and sighed again before taking a final sip of his sour teasing cold coffee.

The Crusel boy had to be connected to what was happening, he knew it.


	21. Protector

Alice began to cry to herself right before the sun started to rise over Springwood. The town like it always did started to slowly wake up. First the sounds of birds chirping, and then the peaceful humming of the power lines outside started to faintly be heard over the sprinklers which sprayed away the morning due which formed over this almost still spring night.

Joey had stayed in the same position for almost two hours straight. He was sitting up a little in Alice's bed with the covers and sheets draped over the two of them. Alice had laid her head on him and seemed to be shivering for the last couple of minutes. Joey didn't know if it was from staying awake so long, or what had happened between them. In fact he was still in shock about it in the first place.

Finally when he heard her sniffle he started to gently pet her hair again, sighing as he used his hand to turn her face towards him.

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

They looked at each other and then he leaned in kissing her, not really knowing what else to do at that point.

"I'm sorry…"

He whispered again as she pressed up against him.

Alice shook a little and then brushed a strand of fallen hair from her beautiful and almost glowing face.

"No…don't be."

They looked at each other for another moment. Exhausted and drained with little energy to still function.

Just then sunlight started to slowly pour into Alice's room. It casted off a rather dim golden look showing every piece of dust that floated in the air. Between the sounds of the sprinklers and birds outside somehow in the middle of all this madness everything seemed right between them.

She shifted around in bed and moved on top of his lap. At first Joey didn't think that was such a smart idea since both were still naked. But just the feel of her warmth and the slight weight of her made him lay his head back and look at her as she sat up looking down at him with a slight smile.

All ready he felt his body reacting and he blushed.

"Sorry…"

He mumbled as Alice sat up on him and smiled, her entire body was perfect. Here she was, every inch of her naked form in the early morning sunlight right near above him. Somehow sex was no longer a huge build up he thought of, or something that he longed for. No after Alice he looked at it as something different, more then just pleasure. The feelings, and the way they were at that time were the happiest moments in his life. He knew it…and he knew he loved her.

She looked down at him and started to laugh as she leaned down to kiss him again. He looked up at with wide big eyes and then raised his head to meet her. They smiled through their kiss and then without any warning Joey wrapped his arms around her body and tossed her on her back. Both went under the covers, Joey on top laughing with her as he playfully took nips at her neck and collar bone. Alice laughed looking up at him, fighting back against the falling covers and reached and kissed him again.

Soon afterwards Alice climbed out of bed and got changed quickly in the bathroom. Joey got back into his clothes and both headed down stairs.

Alice made coffee as Joey started to draw a map of where Dr. Gordon was now living. Somehow in the morning they both looked better. Color had even returned to their faces as Joey sat at the kitchen table and drew out the final directions.

"If we leave right away we might get there by tomorrow afternoon."

Alice came to the table and placed two steaming hot coffee mugs. Sitting down beside him she put one arm around his shoulder and looked down at the paper.

"You think so?"

Joey rubbed the side of his face and nodded.

"Yeah if we stick to the back roads we'll be fine."

Alice nuzzled Joey's neck as he folded the paper and handed it to her.

"Keep this in your pocket, we might need it later."

Alice did so and started to drink her coffee. Joey glanced up at the clock.

"When is your father coming home?"

"Not before ten that's for sure…"

Joey nodded and then looked at her again.

"You look a lot like Kristen now."

Alice gave a faint smile.

"I miss her…"

Joey rested his hand on hers.

"I know."

A hour an hour later Alice grabbed a few things and they were out the door. She didn't even bother leaving a note since she knew right when her father came home he was fall asleep in bed until ten, yell for dinner and when it didn't come he would crawl right on back to yet another bar. Drinking away the pain of losing his only son, drinking away the pain of knowing all he had left was Alice.

Both walked hand and hand to Joey's car and pulled out without a second thought. By the time the sun started to settle over all the houses sitting in neat little rows, they past the sing that said.

Springwood

"A nice place to live!"


	22. Betrayal

The police received a phone call around twelve in the afternoon when Anderson had just started to drift off in his favorite chair. He had come home around seven and told Sally he just wanted to relax. Now dressed in sweats he settled back and closed his eyes, knowing once he had a few hours of sleep in him he might be able to think straighter.

Sally was in the kitchen making lunch when the phone started to ring. Moments later she stuck her head in the den and told him it was the station. Still out of sorts and groggy he answered and heard that it was the Johnson girl.

Her father had come home, after a night of drinking. From Anderson and the rest of the police's point of view this seemed normal for a man who just lost his son. And found his daughter missing. He first called her work and then a few of her friends, and no one had seen her.

He had waited for a few hours but she hadn't come home yet.

Anderson at first thought he was just worried. Most likely the girl had taken off for a few hours to get away…he was just being over protective of his daughter after what had happened. But before he had time to tell Harper at the desk to go check the cemetery…there was something else.

The Crusel's had called in a little after eleven. They had been leaving messages for any of the boys to bring their son back home since he had been ditching soon the last couple of weeks and hardly showed his face around the house anymore.

Anderson did have a funny feeling about him.

The boy's mother said it was a private matter but she happened to find this morning a crumpled up piece of paper in her son's wastebasket. It seemed as if he had stopped by his house while the two parents were at work. She said it had an address he must of looked up for a Neil Gordon, and how that was the same man who was fired from the hospital where her son had spent half of a year.

Anderson had read all about him and how he lost his medical license.

The mother was having a fit about her son trying to contact him since all he brought for them was trouble. She said she had called Western Hills down and how she wanted the police to help them find her son before she reached the next town. She was worried for his well being and knew whatever was going on between his friends had to be stopped.

Anderson knew that she woman had known something, and that there was more to look into. But the police had agreed to help but after Mr. Johnson had called one of his daughter's friends. She said the last time she did see Alice was yesterday when she got into the Crusel's boy's car.

Anderson told Harper he would be dressed and down there in five minutes.

Meanwhile Joey had decided the back roads were the safest bet. They were the old side of the highway which showed mostly old grass fields and run down farms. The further South you went the fields slowly turned into desert and dry land.

With the windows down Alice was thankful for the cool breeze that blew against her flowing red hair. It would be summer in a few weeks…somehow time and everything else hadn't really clicked in yet. Her friends and bother were all dead.

All she had left was him…

Looking at him drive she smiled and rested her head on his shoulder, one hand on his leg.

She had asked a little more about Dr. Gordon and this other woman who had died when everything in Western Hills happened.

Her name was Nancy…

Around that time the police and others had decided to make two roadblocks on the main highway and the back roads which lead out of Springwood. Three doctors from Western Hills were there, counting one named Dr. Sims, an older woman who had worked with Joey before.

They had gone to the Johnson's house and discovered that her bed had been slept in, and the slightest idea of panic started to rise in Alice's father's head that maybe the boy raped his daughter.

Anderson calmed him down and called in on the radio…they would take the highway to cut around on the back roads…if they were headed that way they would cut them off within the hour.

As Joey drove and tried his best to keep talking to Alice to keep her alert. He looked at the never ending road ahead of him and still was still really unsure about what was going to happen next.

All he did know was he wasn't going to let anything happen to her.

Alice took a deep breath in and out resting her head on him, the sound of that made Joey smile.

Driving he squinted and thought back on Western Hills, back when he couldn't speak…back when he was given a gift to restart his life.

Maybe he needed to die, maybe once he was dead Freddy couldn't reach Alice anymore…maybe it was meant to be.

The truth was he wasn't going for the dugs for himself…he needed them for Alice.

Then they saw it.

There was a roadblock, two police cars, a panel van, and his parent's car. Right away Alice shot up and they looked. "How did they find them?" Right away the two froze as their eyes bugged out and the car slowly stopped as one of the police men flagged them down.

There was nowhere else to go…they were caught.

Sitting side by side Joey could see his parents, holding each other and looking worried. Beside them with red bloodshot eyes was Alice's father.

One of the police officers walked towards the car.

"Please step out of the car…"

Joey looked at the shifter and thought for a second of flooring it backwards and maybe planning an escape, but he saw Alice's worried eyes and slowly opened the door. Both got out of the car and walked towards the others who were behind the police cars.

Alice saw her father and stepped closer to Joey, locking hands with him.

Everyone's eyes fixed on them as Anderson stepped forward.

"You kids sure made all of us worry taking off like that…scared your parents half to death."

"You don't understand…"

Alice said in a low voice, squeezing Joey's hand tighter.

Then Dr. Sims walked out from behind the panel van with two large paramedics. The sight of them made Joey freeze.

He first looked at the woman's face, then the two men, then his parents, and then back to the van. It read Western Hills.

Dr. Sims had a very calm look on her face as she crossed her arms.

"Hello Joey."

Joey started to slowly shake his head, backing off a little with Alice who looked up at him. Joey's whole insides started to shake as he looked at his parents who had turned against them.

"No…."

And with that the fight began.


	23. You're killing me

It seemed as if everything happened in slow motion. Alice stood beside Joey as the older woman dressed in a long white coat stepped out from behind the van. Right away she knew something was wrong, just the way Joey's entire body tensed and started to step backwards with her.

In total there were fourteen of them all standing there. Three police cruises were parked in a neat little row, beside Joey's parent's car, her father's, and the panel van. Everyone stood back, waiting almost for something just like this to happen. At first Alice thought her father's face would be angered, but instead all she saw was a sad lonely face with tried blood shot eyes. In fact Alice never thought she saw her father look so worried before in his life.

Joey's parents stood beside each other and gave a rather cold glance to the paramedics who started forward.

"No…"

Joey said again shaking his head. Alice looked at him and saw he was shaking all over almost in disbelief.

"You didn't…"

He looked straight at his parents who stood closer together worried.

"Please Joey, we've just been so worried about you and your friends, we thought it would be for the best…"

"NO!"

Joey's hand slipped out of hers and he started to make a run for it. There was really nowhere else to go other then the road, on one side was a field, and the other the woods and over that the highway.

Alice jumped back and screamed out of pure fright as Joey tried circling away from the cars and making it to the field. Right away the two paramedics went after him as Anderson and his men ran quickly behind.

"Don't hurt him!"

Alice saw Joey make it about fifteen feet into the grassy soft slope of the hill starting towards the field when the men tackled him, knocking him down onto the grass. Alice's father came over to Alice and tried putting his arm over hers when she ran forward to where they were holding him.

Anderson and the others were now circled around where Joey was being held. He struggled underneath their grip as one of the men pressed down with his arm kneeling beside him and locking his throat down so he couldn't rise his lower body to kick or fight.

Joey's parents and Dr. Sims approached towards him, everyone looking down at the poor young boy as the men held him, and right away Joey locked eyes with Dr. Sims.

"No, you stupid son of a bitch, your killing us!"

He screamed as his legs kicked up and town.

"YOUR KILLING ME, YOU STUPID BITCH YOUR KILLING ME!"

Dr. Sims didn't even twitch, she shook her head slightly and then came out with what looked like a needle from her leather clutch bag she had over one shoulder. Walking closer she kneeled down along with the other two men and started to roll up Joey's sleeve.

Joey's eyes bugged out as he watched her, looking up to where Alice stood watching helpless along with his two parents.

"Alice, no…please!"

Alice then saw the pure fear inside him, she went down and tried with all her strength to pull one of the men off. Without any thought of reaction the man flung his strong hard brick fist into Alice's face knocking her down on the ground flat. Blood bubbled up from her nose.

Joey struggled even harder, tears rolling down his face as Joey's father helped Alice up but still held her back to do anything. Anderson started forward as Alice's father caught up with the others and saw Alice's face, holding her chin and looking at it he looked at the others and yelled.

"What the hell is all this?"

"Please sir…"

Alice started to cry from the pain as her father took out a handkerchief from his back pocket and tried holding it up against her face.

"Let me see honey."

Alice slapped down his hand and watched helpless.

"Please Joey it's for the best…"

The needle then went into his arm as he watched whatever they were giving him course into his veins. Panting he laid his head back, the effect of the drug all ready working as he gazed up at Alice.

"Alice…"

Alice tried going forward again but Anderson held her back. She watched as he laid there, looking up with his wide scared eyes. Never before did she want to go towards him, touch him, and take him away.

Dr. Sims kneeled down and felt Joey's pulse.

His eyes fluttered, and then closed. Dr. Sims took a moment and then nodded to the other men.

"Don't put him to sleep, please!"

"Alice…"

Alice fought against her father and Anderson.

"You don't understand, please…he can't sleep, he's going to die!"

The paramedics gave each other a look as Joey's parents held each other, Dr. Sims looked up.

"Alice I understand you have been through a lot, but Joey is a sick boy…he needs help."

Alice looked back down at him, laying there, now no longer full of fight and started to sob.

"Please…"

She trailed off and started to cry again, her father gently put his arm around her and lead her back to his car. There Dr. Sims asked if she wanted something to relax, Alice couldn't stop crying. Hot sticky tears ran down her face as the taste of blood came back in the back of her throat. She knew he would die…

The others wouldn't lessen, they only gave each other looks as Dr. Sims walked over and kneeled down beside Alice who sat in the passenger seat of her father's car. With the door open and a wet cloth pressed up against her face she watched as the paramedics loaded Joey onto a stretcher to the back of the van, his parents watching.

Dr. Sims was taking a needle out of a plastic package as she watched Alice's hopeless eyes watch Joey.

"Alice, you have to understand we're only here to help Joey."

"Your killing him, that's all your doing."

She hissed back, a slight pounding starting in the back of her head. She saw her father was talking with the police now as they started to unclear the road block.

"I understand you two are very close, and I heard you were also very good friends with Kristen."

Alice watched as the van doors were slammed shut, Dr. Sims kept talking.

"Joey is going through something that isn't normal, he needs treatment for it and I know how much you don't want to believe me, but this thing he's spreading, this fear that all of the children I treated back at Western Hills…it's just in their mind Alice, it's just a label for their sickness…"

"It's real, and he's going to die if he's asleep…why can't you get that?"

Dr. Sims gave a rather calm nod as she stuck Alice with the needle. The pain was quick but at that point between everything else Alice didn't care. It wasn't a sedative, her father made sure of that…but knowing that there was no way she could help Joey turned her insides black.

Dr. Sims kept talking about how much she understood how much she was going through, and what loss has happened lately, but Joey was just a sick boy…simple as that, and they weren't here to harm him, they were here to help him.

Alice saw the cars start pulling out, she watched as Joey's parents got back into their car.

"Where are they taking him?"

"Tomorrow he's going up to Western Hills…he's spending the night at Fairview."

"Your locking him back up?"

"Alice, it isn't locking him up, it's making sure he doesn't harm himself or others.

Alice held back salty tears as she watched the van slowly pull away.

"He's gonna kill him…"

She shook underneath her breath.

Anderson and her father then walked over, Dr. Sims got back up and handed her father her card and told him she would very much like to speak to Alice once she's calmed her nerves.

Walking to Joey's parents car she got into the back seat and pulled down the road. Alice turned a little and watched as cars and van headed back to Springwood. Joey was inside there, all alone and helpless…God she wanted to be with him, how could they take her away like that?

Anderson hooked his thumbs into his belt loops and looked at Alice's father.

"Mr. Johnson, I would like to talk to Alice tomorrow, once she's ready…"

Alice's father rubbed her daughter's shoulder.

"Yeah fine."

Giving a cold stare he told Alice to get inside, Alice did so and he shut the door before walking over to his side. Anderson stared through the glass window of the car and saw the young girl lower the cloth and look up at him.

She looked scared to death.

Mr. Johnson started the engine and slowly turned around and headed back to town. Just then Harper came over, watching the car and it disappeared down the road.

"That's the rest of it sir, we're ready to go."

Anderson kept watching.

"Okay…"

Harper eyed Anderson.

"You think they we're going to do something?"

Anderson rubbed his chin and slowly shook his head before turning back.

"Hell if I know, maybe they were just running away…boy's parents sure as hell want him locked up, that's for sure."

"You don't think he had anything to do with…"

"I don't know what to think right now, but I sure as hell feel better that those kids are gonna be looked under with a close eye now."

"Think he raped her?"

Anderson shook her head again.

"Doesn't seem the type, come on I'll ride in your car."

Both started back towards the last few cruisers, their shoes crunched against the gravel of the road as the sunlight started to flicker.

"Why do you think that boy put up such a fight…girl kept saying something about if he was put to sleep he would die?"

Anderson looked at Harper and shrugged.

"Come on Harper, we have a long night ahead of us."

Both men got into the car as Alice's father kept driving, giving a nervous eye to his daughter who kept looking out the window with a blank stare.

"I'm sorry I left you last night…but your all I have honey…"

Alice felt her father pet her hair as he tried smiling, but all she could think of Joey…she needed to save him.

Only a few miles ahead of them Joey laid on a stretcher in the back of the van, an I.V hooked up to him. One paramedic shinned a tiny flashlight into one of his eyes and nodded.

"Okay let's get this show on the road, he's out."


	24. No escape

Alice and her father arrived back home around quarter to three. The entire ride back was in silence as Alice cried to herself and held the cloth that was given to her as almost a safety blanket against her skin. A million thoughts raced through her head. She knew Joey wasn't crazy, and no matter how many times her father, the police, or those people from the hospital told her…she knew this was real.

How could they have gotten caught, they were a team, they only had each other. Feeling sickened to her stomach she watched as they pulled up the driveway.

She knew they sedated him, and she knew Freddy would be after him. She had to stop this…somehow?

Once they got inside it seemed to really strike Alice for the first time that Rick was really dead. Most of the time he was either in the garage working out, or blasting his radio upstairs. Now…silence.

Whatever drug they gave her made almost all her functions delayed, she wanted so baldy to just run out to door and get to him, but somehow it was now completely out of her hands. Her father rubbed her shoulders and lead her upstairs.

He told her he would be downstairs making some tea, and how she should get into some sweats and start relaxing. She knew the guilt was getting to him. Never before had he acted like a parent, and now here he was somehow acting as if she was so fragile, and about to break at any moment.

Upstairs she tossed her clothes off and threw them in her bathroom hamper, she pulled on a long T-shirt she owned and climbed into bed. All ready her mind was zipping a million miles a minute. She knew there was no physical way she could get to Joey, no he was under heavy watch at Fairview before he was transferred. All ready the police were breathing down their necks. She knew the doctors and guards made no difference, he was stuck in there alone, and she had to help him.

She settled into her bed, still unmade from his morning and could almost still feel the warmth that Joey and herself left. She rubbed her hands against the sheets and sighed as she huddled around the covers. Last night was amazing, somehow looking back at everything that had happened, she wasn't embarrassed. He took that aching pain away and gave her something else, something she never dreamed about feeling.

She remembered while they were having sex, she started to slowly kiss his chest, then she found something that made her look back, something that wasn't right and somehow through the thin darkness she could see.

It looked like faded scars of some sort, she could only make out the words "Come and Get." Everything else was far too faded to read.

How did he get those awful things?

She looked at him and he seemed to be the one shy and almost ashamed. He brushed back his hair and looked at her through the darkness.

"They blamed the woman who helped us at the hospital…it wasn't.."

"Shhh…" "It's okay…" And very slowly she kissed those marks on him, things he had tried to hide as much as his past. They were ugly and filled with pain. Sighing she looked out the window and knew she loved him, and she needed to save him.

Her father came in with a tray of tea and set it down on her nightstand. She really couldn't look him in the eye at this moment, but he sat on the edge of her bed and gently touched her chin.

"I lost Rick because I didn't watch him…I don't wanna lose you."

Alice looked at her father and saw how sad he really did look just then.

"Get some rest honey."

He got up, kissing the top of her head and shut her door. Hearing him head downstairs she knew he would break open a bottle and settle back on the couch and get hammered the rest of the night. This was all too much for him, and he needed to forget.

For once she didn't even mind.

Right away she threw her covers back and looked at the lock, panic stuck her heart.

What if he was all ready dead?

No, he couldn't be…Joey was a fighter just like her, he had fought this before and was stronger. She could feel him inside her, pulsing…he was still alive, and waiting for her. Right away she ran to her dresser and pulled out a pain of old torn jeans Debbie had given her a few months ago when they were trading clothes. Debbie, her sweet friend who most likely had been worried to death about her must of left at least twenty or so messages on the house's machine all ready.

She knew Debbie's life was also on the line here. Grabbing a pair of jeans she pulled them on in a hurry and tied her hair quickly into a ponytail.

She knew she could fall asleep at any second, but she didn't want to take any chances. Opening her dresser draw she took out a bottle of sleeping pills which she took last year when she suffered for a small series of panic attacks. Opening the bottle she didn't care if she took to many, she poured almost half a hand full and swallowed them dry before standing there, taking a deep breath and knowing it was time.

As for Joey he arrived at Fairview almost a half an hour before Alice even knew what she had to do. The doctors wheeled him into a special unit for the night as his parents sat in the waiting room and started filling out forms. Dr. Sims sat with them and started to discuss Joey's stay back at Western Hills. There was no longer a program since the suicides had stopped, but she thought if he was delivered to her special care, and maybe started electric shock treatments they might be able to focus if this was just a bystander of maybe a different level that Joey as well as the other teens set for themselves. She told them she thought Joey had been serious disturbed since he left Western Hills. He witnessed a series of murders, and was taken out of her treatment far to soon. Yes his voice recovered, but as for the mind…she felt going back to blaming his dreams of the deaths of his friends was a simple show of Joey's thin mental state.

He would harm others, as well as himself.

He would be put on close watch and started on a round of medication, Dr. Sims didn't want to loose out on him this time. This just wasn't sleep deprivation… it was something much more.

They went over papers as Dr. Sims explained to them that all of this wasn't their fault. Only that the deaths of both Kristen and Kincaid was starting to push Joey over the edge. Between guilt and lack of sleep she knew if he was treated and looked after in Western Hills everything would turn out fine.

They questioned how scared he was, and now easy it was now to tell since he could talk…and the girl.

Dr. Sims said both had an attraction, but it was a simple cause of brain washing. This girl was going through a very rough time between the deaths of her friends and now brother, and saw Joey was almost a protector. He gave her the fear as the others did a year ago in the hospital, and now it was spreading.

It was nothing to worry about, he was safe.

Joey now laid in a hospital bed, dressed in a white T-shirt and Pj bottoms he mother brought with them. The nurse checked his vital signs, as he was hooked up to two different machines to watch over his brain activity and heart rate. He laid there as the lights were turned off, looking so peaceful there, seventeen years old.

A nurse told the others working at the desk it was just some poor kid who had gone through hell. He didn't seem like a trouble maker at all. Just someone who now at this exact moment was slipping deeper and deeper into something he couldn't escape from.


	25. Please don't leave

To everyone else, Joey was sleeping peacefully in his hospital room. It was mid afternoon, and there hadn't been much action since earlier this morning. Joey's parents were still in the waiting room going over paperwork with Dr. Sims, and Alice was preparing herself to find him.

The struggle had been the worst, Joey's guy reaction was just to run the opposite way the second he saw Dr. Sims. Why was she here? Why did his parents do this to him? Everything was over within a couple of seconds, one of the paramedics knocked him hard to the ground, making a deep throbbing start on his left shoulder blade, and so he fought back as they held him down. He tried to best to get away, and the last few things he saw was Alice trying to go to him and hearing her scream.

Then the stern eyes of Dr. Sims and his parents as they dug the needle deep into his arm. He knew what this meant, he knew it was over and there was nothing left to do. He would be drugged and then trapped inside this nightmarish hell without any escape.

"YOUR KILLING ME!"

He saw the reactions on his parents face as he screamed up to them, but they needed to hear the truth. Eighteen or so years ago they thought they were doing right for him, trying to cover up the past and protect him…little did they know they were sealing their unborn son's fate. Now here he was sedated, unable to wake himself from this sinking abyss he was slowly going into.

At first it was nothing, then slowly, very slowly flashes of his mind started to appear in front of him. As the nurse did her checks she saw him laying there and his eyes darting back and forth under his eyelids…he was dreaming.

In the dream little memories of Western Hills came back to him. Back when he was silenced, back when he along with the others tried everything in their will power to be believed and stay alive.

But the ones he saw were only good ones. Happy memories back at Western Hills, ones of his friends back at group laughing and little things that happened between them.

They loved each other like a family. All of their faces, all linked together, all the Elm Street's children. Here he was the last, but something about the warm sunlight coming in from the gated windows, the laughing in the rooms, his friends…all together.

Then his eyes slowly fluttered open.

He was darkness, cold beads of water dripped from the ceiling down on his forehead. His expression changed and he opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the dream now…in one of Western Hill's rooms. But no…it wasn't the clean cut hospital he stayed in. This seemed to be the empty skeleton of what used to be the hospital. Unused and falling apart, moonlight streaming in through the rusted windows. Old crumpled leaves and dust blew around the creaking floorboards. It seemed deserted and an empty old falling apart shell.

He was laying on one of the floors, blinking again he sat up slowly and looked around.

The room was empty.

A slight chill went through him as he looked around, the wind outside blew strong and brushed across his hair. He sat there for a moment as the moonlight trickled against his eyes and then heard a faint singing.

"One two Freddy's coming for you…"

Joey took a second and heard it again, faint and soft.

"Three four better lock your door…"

Joey heard it coming outside of the room, into the dark hallway, picking himself up he went towards the voice, so soft and gentle like a child's.

He walked out barefoot into the empty hallway. Only the thin moonlight lit his way as he walked down the hall, getting closer and closer towards the voice. Looking around he saw empty rooms with old frames of beds, and left over medical equipment. He could hear the voice closer now, with caution he walked towards the doorway of one of the rooms.

Looking in he saw the entire room was empty, other then the wide windows looking up towards the darkened night sky, and a small child sitting in the center of the room.

Joey took a second and watched as the child finished the song.

The child looked no older then four or five. It was a little boy dressed in a dirty long night shirt. The boy was kneeled down beside what looked to be the small doll house of 1428 Elm that Kristen made.

The boy rocked back and forth, his back facing Joey as he sung.

"Nine ten never sleep again."

His voice was like an angel's, Joey blinked and then the boy spoke, almost making him scream.

"I'm sorry about what happened."

Joey looked.

"What?"

The boy turned around, Joey never thought he saw such wide blue eyes in his life.

"About what happened, you were the last."

Joey walked slowly into the room, not taking his eyes off the child.

The boy looked back at the house and sighed, Joey bit his lip and walked closer, looking down at him.

"What's your name?"

"Jacob…what's yours?"

"Joey…what are you doing here, aren't your parents worried about you?"

"No, they don't care about me."

Joey felt a very uneasy feeling as he watched the boy.

"I bet that isn't true…"

The boy's eyes started to fill with tears, without any warning he wrapped his arms tight against one of Joey's legs.

"Please don't go!"

Joey almost jumped back looking at him.

"What?"

Jacob sobbed against Joey's leg.

"Please don't go, you'll make Alice sad, she'll be all alone."

"How do you know Alice?"

The boy kept crying.

Joey raised an eyebrow before the boy looked up at him, shaking and tears rolling down his face.

"Please don't go daddy."

Joey almost choked, his entire heart skipped a beat.

"What?"

The boy continued crying as Joey with ease kneeled down and took him into his arms.

"Let me see you…"

He lifted the boy's head and stared at his wide big eyes, both looked at each other in almost pure amazement for a few moments before Joey used his finger to wipe one of Jacob's tears away.

Both locked eyes as Jacob kept looking at him, then the screeching of the claws came. Joey spun around and heard them again.

They were coming from the dark closet across the room.

Still holding Jacob he looked at the closet and felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. Slowly he rose up leaving the child there and started towards the door.

Jacob watched as Joey approached the door and leaned in closer to see whatever it was through the thick darkness. At first he saw nothing and only heard his heart beat louder inside him.

Then…

Freddy's face popped out and hissed in his face.

"Missed me?"

Joey screamed as Freddy tackled him down on the ground. Both went crashing against the floorboards as Jacob jumped back.

Joey felt his entire body freeze underneath Freddy, biting down on his tongue to hard he drew blood and then looked up at his evil black eyes.

Freddy gazed down at the warrior he was still yet to kill, and used his knifes which shinned against the moon to touch one of Joey's cheeks. Joey looked up at him as Freddy smiled.

"Joey…"

Joey then knew this was it, before Freddy had time to react Joey brought up his knee with all his might against Freddy. Freddy screamed in pain as he started to roll with him. Joey then eyed Jacob one last time and screamed…

"RUN JACOB RUN!"

The boy took off down the dark hallway as Alice stood in her bedroom. Slowly things started to shift around and spin. Felling light headed she held her forehead as she started to slowly back up.

Then taking a deep sigh and feel backwards onto her bed. One moment she was there, the next crashing through into Joey's dream world with a crash.


	26. Farewell

Just as Joey stared up at the entity that had caused all of this, he somehow saw his entire life flash inside those dark empty voids. This wasn't the Freddy he was used to seeing, no something was different…he seemed darker, more evil.

The claws brushed up against his sweat covered face and played with his bangs. Joey took a deep breath in and then the sound came from behind them.

Crashing through a vent came Alice, she had somehow fallen asleep and got sucked in.

No…not her.

Panic rushed deeply inside his heart as he looked over Freddy's hunched shoulders and saw Alice slowly pick herself off the ground and take in her surroundings.

"ALICE WAKE UP!"

Joey screamed as Alice fixed eyes on him.

"GET AWAY FROM HIM YOU SONOFABITCH!"

She flipped towards him, never looking so beautiful and strong in her life. Freddy rolled off Joey and hissed at her as she kicked him square in the face.

Freddy went down as Joey without any held at all flipped forward to stand up and ran to her. They had no time to say anything, right away Krueger flickered his claws and tried to dash at them as Joey and Alice jumped back the other way.

"Elm street's last brat…farewell!"

Laughing he darted out again but Alice kicked him again right near the ribs and danced around him with Joey almost in a circle. Joey could see the only way out of that room was by Freddy…thinking fast he put his hands right up to Alice's ears.

Alice looked confused and tried to say something but Joey snapped his eyes shut and screamed at the top of his lungs. Right away the entire room shook and all the windows shattered. Alice's nose began to bleed again by the muffled loud which filled the air. Freddy screamed and in a pure second Joey took Alice's hand and rushed by him into the darkness of the hallway.

Together they ran, passing all the open doorways which spilled with moonlight. The sound of the claws coming closer and closer. Both reached a dead end, which was a huge stain glass window which over looked the chapel outside of the hospital.

Both stopped for a second trying to get their breath when he looked at her.

"Let me look at you…are you hurt?"

He held her face in his hands and looked her over with scared and depressed eyes. Alice shook inside and leaned in and kissed him.

"God your so stupid…why did you fall asleep?"

They kissed even harder, holding onto each other and breathing deep.

Alice looked at him and kissed him again.

Then the sound came, this time louder…both slowly turned and saw him there, standing.

There was no way out, Alice had taken too many pills, they were stuck now.

Holding his knifes up he smiled.

Joey stood in front of Alice…this was it, he hated him with every will in his body. No, he couldn't get to Alice or anyone else…this had to be stopped. Feeling just as Kristen did he knew his powers were weak…Alice was all that there was left.

Turning he looked at her one final time, they had only spent one night together, but he loved her more then anyone could for a lifetime. Touching her cheek she looked at him.

"I'm sorry…"

Before she could react he took her by the collar of the shirt and rose her the ground, with all his might he threw her right into the stain glass window, it shattered and she went through.

Millions of pieces fell and slid across the floor. Alice started to freefall through the midnight sky and saw everything spin around her before landing on one of the lower roofs underneath. The fall was hard and it knocked her out cold.

Joey eyed outside the window, he saw the tiny little dot that was her body and knew she would be safe…it needed to stop.

A gentle wind blew against Joey's face and he heard the faint sound of children again. Freddy snapped his claws again, making that awful scratching sound and then lowered it in battle with Joey.

I'm the last.

He took a deep breath and knew this was his final time to be a dream warrior…once he was dead, there would be no more.

At that exact moment Alice felt the wind against her face and opened her eyes to stare at the beautiful star lit sky. Laying there for a second she then heard children sing.

Pieces of glass were all around her. Taking a second she then felt something fall on her face.

Water?

It came again from the sky, then again, and again, and again.

It fell all over her.

She slowly sat up on the rooftop, looking up at the large broken window twenty or so feet above her on the other building and then opened her palms.

Blood.

It showered all over here…the sky was raining blood.

It soaked into her clothes and down her face…puddles formed in her hands as she sat there.

Then she felt it like a knife, snapping her head up every thing and every fear she ever felt hit her at once. Joey had been taken.

"Joey NOOOOOO!"

But there was silence and the blood kept coming from the sky…then right before it filled her to knock her back down…she snapped awake on her bed with her father standing over her and shaking.

Her wide blue eyes snapped open and she was in her room, everything her dad was saying seemed like breathless words as she laid there.

Frozen…all of her windows and her fish tank shattered. Her father screamed and shielded her as the glass from all over sprayed on them.

Joey, the last of the elm street children was dead.


	27. Sweet child of mine

She's got a smile that it seems to me  
Reminds me of childhood memories  
Where everything  
Was as fresh as the bright blue sky  
Now and then when I see her face  
She takes me away to that special place  
And if I'd stare too long  
I'd probably break down and cry

Sweet child o' mine  
Sweet love of mine

She's got eyes of the bluest skies  
As if they thought of rain  
I hate to look into those eyes  
And see an ounce of pain  
Her hair reminds me of a warm safe place  
Where as a child I'd hide  
And pray for the thunder  
And the rain  
To quietly pass me by

Sweet child o' mine  
Sweet love of mine

Where do we go   
Where do we go now  
Where do we go  
Sweet child o' mine - Guns N Roses

In just a pure split second everything had happened. Alice one moment was in the dream, sitting on a rooftop down below and being showered in blood. Next she was being shook awake by her worried father and then it hit her like a bullet going right into her flesh at a million miles a second.

Joey was dead.

No, God wouldn't do this to her, he couldn't be that cruel.

But she knew, the second that powerful force hit her and she awoke she knew he had been taken like the others.

Screaming the windows exploded without any warning, her fish tank gusted out water and flapping fish onto her carpet soaking it, and huge clumps of glass flew all over the two of them as her father covered her in pure panic.

Now it was over.

They laid there for a few minutes before her father lifted his head and slowly looked around.

Outside a car alarm was going off…a dog barked and then it stopped.

Alice could see it was nightfall, in fact her alarm clock which sat on the nightstand beside her read that it was a little after eight.

She had been asleep for almost five hours.

"Alice, oh my God Alice are you okay?"

Alice couldn't speak…she knew what had happened.

Looking up at her father she burst into tears and covered her face. Unknowing what to do her father jumped off her bed and rushed to call 911. As she laid there a million flashes of his face appeared before her and she knew Freddy had won.

Having a complete nervous breakdown by the time the paramedics arrived she was sobbing uncontrollably and clutching to her father, repeating the same words over and over again.

"He's dead, he killed him."

They rushed to the hospital as her father explained that someone must of shot out the windows outside and the hard sound of sirens filled her ears as snapped her eyes shut and cried until her heart thought it would break. They tried to sedate her but she threw the syringe across the cab of the ambulance and it shattered against one of the walls.

Finally she past out right before they arrived at the hospital.

She didn't dream she only saw quick flashes as if a photo was being taken. Some were of her mother, memories of when she was younger. Others of growing up with Rick. Then it faded out as her weak eye lids fluttered and she found herself in a hospital bed, Debbie looking worried as hell in a chair beside her.

"Debbie…"

Debbie straighten up in her chair and took her hand with hers.

"Hey hon, how are you holding up?"

"Joey…"

"What?"

"Joey, where's Joey."

Just then the doctor who must have treated her entered the doorway with Alice's file.

"Hello Alice, I'm Dr. Lexton, you in the hospital…and your going to be fine."

Alice looked around the darkened hospital and then back at the doctor.

"What was I brought in here for?"

"It seems as if you had a little accident at home, we were really worried about you."

"Joey…where is he?"

Debbie eyed the doctor who walked to the foot of her bed and sighed.

"I'm afraid Mr. Crusel died a few hours ago due to an aneurism."

Alice tried sitting up in bed but felt dizzy.

"No…"

She started to slowly shake her head.

"Alice please understand that…"

"No!"

Debbie stood up and went to Alice, holding her as she began to weep against her shoulder. Joey couldn't be dead…she loved him.

The doctor watched and knew the girl's father was talking to the police.

It was true, the boy had died.

Alice kept crying against her friend…she was now alone and was going to die.


	28. Never sleep again

Joey's body was taken to the morgue early the next morning.

What had happened was around eight the nurses at the front desk saw Joey's vital signs on the main base machine flat line. Paging the doctor they ran into the room and found him seizing. They surrounded him, trying their best to hold him down as the doctors came in all at once and started to shout for what they needed.

A pen light was shinned in the boy's blank eyes.

Before Dr. Sims and his parents even took wind that something bad had happened he had flat lined completely. They work on him for twenty minutes before finally the doctors gave up.

One nurse was pumping an air bag over Joey's mouth and looked up as one of the doctors slowly shook his head and snapped off one of his rubber gloves.

"Time of death 8:23...come on."

Everyone looked at each other, still in utter shock that one moment this teenage boy was sleeping peacefully and the next dead.

Physically he seemed healthy…then why did his heart stop? First was that they blamed the sedative and thought he had a bad reaction to it. But by the time Joey's parents were told the heart breaking news that their son who they had fought for so badly was now dead.

They couldn't explain much, only that they were allowed to see him before he was taken downstairs. Mrs. Crusel broke down on the floor sobbing as Mr. Crusel shoved one of the doctors against the soda machine and screamed that he wanted to see his boy now. That there couldn't be any way for Joey to have died in that short period of time. He was safe…he was just sleeping, nothing was wrong with him. No, their only son wasn't dead…he couldn't be.

Word spread quick around the hospital and the Crusel's stayed with Joey's body for almost a full two hours. They soon were taken into one of the doctor's office to be spoken to, and they wrote down that an aneurism had caused the young man's death…nothing more.

Dr. Sims was talking to the other doctors and blamed the stress of everything that had happened, and maybe the lack of sleep the boy had been going through. It was truly a shame for what happened…she cared for Joey, but now the children were all gone.

Joey's mother was given something to relax, after she broke down screaming that he knew this was going to happen.

His body was placed in a plastic body bag and taken downstairs to be examined. Around that time Alice had woken up and received the bad news about Joey. Anderson and Jarvis were both there asking questions. They knew how strange this all sounded. Still the young boy's cries haunted Anderson as he asked the last of the nurses what he wanted to hear.

"Your killing me!"

Did he know…did he know he was going to die in his sleep?"

Anderson shook it off, it had been a long week and there was yet another death to write up on the books. He just couldn't see how this had happened, he thought they were playing it safe with this one.

Sighing Jarvis brought up how that girl had also been taken to the hospital…maybe it was a suicide pact.

No, Anderson couldn't believe that.

Leaning against the wall he looked at the clock thinking, maybe if they had let those two kids go…maybe that boy would of still been alive. Alice meanwhile refused to be put to sleep, her father was downstairs talking to the police and doctors again as Debbie sat on the bed with her with a small paper cup of coffee. The whole entire room was in pitch darkness.

Debbie held her friend as she shook and cried, trying to sooth her she brushed back her hair and kissed her on the head.

Had this man that Alice talked about kill Joey?

She didn't know what to believe .

"I think I met you must have been last July, I can't remember cause there were tears in my eyes, bands of rockets lit up the sky…then you left me and now I know why."

She sang softly to her friend.

Downstairs right before the doctors cracked Joey's chest they noticed something.

Scars…maybe a year old…written across his chest.

"Come and…"

The rest was faded.

Looking down at the boy's white face they sighed and started up the saws.

Alice upstairs cried silent tears and then broke into Debbie's singing.

"Nine ten, never sleep again."


	29. Trying

Joey's funeral took place on a rainy late afternoon five days after he was pronounced dead.

Word spread quickly and there were a million rumors floating around. Mr. Johnson decided to keep Alice home until school let out next week. After speaking to the principal he understood and excused Alice for the rest of her classes. Next year would be senior year anyways, and as far as everyone saw it the faster they closed this year the better.

For two whole months there had been five deaths in Springwood…all teenagers.

Alice was released from the hospital right away, written off as a poor kid who just had herself a nervous breakdown due to everything that had happened. When Dr. Sims tried to approach her in the parking-lot Debbie flashed her a look in a half and told her to go screw off.

Before pulling away Dr. Sims walked over to the passenger side where Alice sat with a tried glazed look over her puffy eyes and slipped her a card with her office number on it in case she ever wanted to talk. Alice hadn't really felt herself in these past few days…she just couldn't take it in that she lost him so easy like that.

If only she had fought harder, if only she had stayed with him.

She was so thankful Debbie was there with her, she really did believe her now as impossible as it seemed, and seemed to be the only one who now looked after her since as worried as her father was, he still couldn't kick his habit, and was away at the bars most of the time anyways. They were mourning as simple as was…they had lost so much now.

Alice stood further in the back with Debbie as a prayer was read out loud and close friends and family of Joey's all wept silently to themselves as the coffin slowly was lowered into the ground.

Watching that coffin be lowered into the darkness she knew now and forever that Joey was gone, cut off from the sun and most likely suffering with everyone else in Hell. She could of stopped all of this.

Debbie had brought up that maybe since Freddy had killed all the Elm Street children that he couldn't harm anyone else anymore. But Alice was too scared to fall asleep…every time she shut her eyes, even for a second she saw that blood pouring onto her from the sky above.

They had decided that tonight they would go to Dr. Gordon's. Alice still had the map that Joey had drawn out. A great deal of her didn't care anymore if she lived or died…or if it really was all over. But Debbie stayed strong and told her maybe once she got this drug and couldn't dream anymore…maybe that really would block any chance what so ever that more people would be killed.

As much as she didn't care she knew she had to do this. The police weren't looking at her anymore…as far as they knew since Joey had died there wasn't any reason to be nervous anymore.

Standing beside her friend, squeezing her hand she watched the crowd start to slowly gather away and walk back to their cars. She wished she still had the power to day dream, to just to like she did with Rick and pretend that Joey really wasn't dead…that none of this had really happened and the coffin would open and he would be there again with her…protecting her.

But no, the coffin stayed shut and rain began to pour on it.

Sighing she knew they would have to leave right away to make good time, Debbie offered to take her car.

She had never met this Dr. Gordon before, but somehow deep inside her she knew if Joey trusted her…she should to.

Before they even had a chance to turn away and start towards the car Alice's name was called out.

"Alice?"

Alice and Debbie looked and saw a very frail looking Mrs. Crusel. She no longer looked like the strong minded woman Alice had only met twice. The guilt of everything and loss seemed to be showing worse in her face now as the cloudy sky reflected against it.

Her husband stood a few feet away, her eyes raw from crying.

"Alice…I…"

Alice just looked at her as Mrs. Crusel sniffled in.

"Alice I just want to tell you how sorry I am, and that I knew Joey cared about you a great deal."

Alice had nothing to say to her.

Holding out something she looked at the young girl's eyes and knew everything her and her husband along with the other neighbors and friends of this town had risked was now all a waste.

They had tried to save their children, now they were no more. Was it him? No…her mind had gone to far to even think that. All she did know was she no longer had a son.

She held out the mullasian dream doll that Alice had noticed in Joey's room almost a month ago to the date. Looking back at that small china glass doll a million feelings and thoughts came back to her. That was back when she was shy and nervous, and just sitting in his bedroom made her life. Before things got bad and everything had happened.

She remembered the night she was over his house to, somehow having a fight with her father didn't even seem to bother her. She just sat in her room humming to herself and fixing the photographs on her mirror, thinking she was the luckiest girl in the world.

Now the dream was over, and she was awoke in a nightmare in which she couldn't escape.

"I think he would of liked for you to have had this."

Alice took the doll in her hands and noticed there was something else with it.

"I don't know what really happened, but I just want to thank you for being there with him, I hope we can talk sometime later."

Alice watched as her husband came over and both walked arm and arm back to the car.

Alice looked down at the doll and saw a photograph was with it. The same photograph she thought she saw in the back of Joey's locker so long ago.

It was a photo taken of Joey, Kristen, and Kincaid…maybe a year or so ago. They all looked to different and younger. Sitting on a brick wall outside the park and laughing.

The dream warriors.

Holding the doll and photograph she knew this was all she had to remember him by.

They reached the next sate around nine that night, the drive didn't seem that long and Debbie seemed dead set on helping her friend. Alice meanwhile read off the map and stared at the doll and photo as they past the tall buildings and drove to the exit they needed to take.

After searching for an hour or so they reached it.

822 Pickup Drive.

They looked up at the apartment building and gulped.

"You sure about this?"

"We need to try."

Both girls got out of the car and walked inside the building.


	30. My soul I keep

Alice and Debbie stood side by side outside apartment door and took a second to themselves before ringing the bell. Alice hadn't slept in days…in fact she had lost complete tract of all time as a whole. All she did know was Joey was dead now and she was the one who had to stop it.

As far as she knew since she was the only one with the power that could still dream of Krueger, that if she stopped dreaming all together that she wouldn't be able to pull anyone else in.

Joey was the last of the Elm Street children, and she was the only one that could bring souls to him. She knew the more powerful he became the harder it would be to stop him…most of all know that she was all alone.

She was loosing her mind and didn't even care right then if she lived or died. Looking at Debbie she nodded and pressed the button. A few moments later after hearing some movement from inside the apartment she heard an older man's voice, most likely looking at the two teenage girls from the peep hole.

"Hello?"

Debbie looked at Alice again as she brushed her hair back, revealing her tried pale face and spoke.

"Dr. Gordon?"

"If you're the press…"

"No, my name is Alice Johnson this is my friend Debbie we drove all the way from Springwood."

"What do you want?"

Alice looked at Debbie again.

"Fred Krueger is back, and I'm sure you read about the others in the paper."

There was silence for a long time and Debbie started to look uneasy as Alice felt her eyes start to fill up with tears.

Clearing her throat she took a step closer.

"Please sir, all of our friends are dead…my brother…please Joey told me you would help."

Tears began to roll down her face as the sound of the locks being undone filled the air. Both waited as Dr. Gordon poked his head out. Right away Alice noticed that this man must have been in his late thirties, but from the dark circles and stick thin body he looked around fifty or so. His rather blank and worried eyes studied the two girls before letting them inside.

Alice knew very little about Dr. Gordon, only that he knew about Freddy and helped them back in Western Hills. She knew whatever he had she needed it as much as anyone else. As much as she wanted Joey with her, she knew she had to be strong and level with his man. All ready sitting in his low rent apartment she could tell anyone involved with this had lost everything.

He excused himself about how messy the place was, and cleared some papers and files off the old leather bound couch in the living room. Offering them coffee they drank from yellow chipped mugs and he sat across from the two of them and told Alice he wanted to know everything…he had only read as much as the reports would detail in from the newspapers.

Alice tried to speak as frank as she could. But the more and more she talked it seemed as if she was slowly falling into a deep black hole in much everything seemed unbelievable. She told him about how close she was with Kristen and how she was dating her twin brother Rick. Talking back on these memories brought her such a false mirror image of what life was like before life and death were in her hands.

She told them about Kincaid and how Kristen and Joey had told them, about her dream with Kristen and the power she was given. She then went on about how she accidentally brought in people only to have them be killed. The last had been her brother, and that's when Joey and her tried to escape to see him.

She told him about the dream and how she found out at the hospital he had died. Tears all ready running a steady stream down her face she knew Joey had given his life for her.

Dr. Gordon didn't say a word through the whole story, his thin dark eyes nodded at almost every word and seemed to be thinking back on something else. She could tell he cared for Joey, Kincaid, and Kristen as if they were his own. Everything they had fought for was now finished.

He kept asking how Freddy could of come back, neither one of them had an answer, so with a second cup of stale tasting coffee he went on about the suicides and medical practice he did back in Western Hills. He spoke about the treatments and groups and how before everything had happened they took Kristen into the hospital as a full time patient.

Dr. Gordon had been transferred after the whole Western Hills scandal to a small practice a few town's over. Closer towards the city and now out of Springwood seemed to be doing the best for him. His tiny little office seemed to be one of the main places he spent most of his hours and it showed in his face.

After the trial and Joey and the others were taken out of Western Hills, Dr. Gordon returned to New York for a short period of time, telling them it might be for the best not to make contact for a while…but in case anything happened he left both of his addresses just in case.

Now here they were, less then a year later and somehow everything had started happening again.

Dr. Gordon had become obsessed with it all, now turning whatever life he had left into why everything had happened, and whatever knowledge he got out of the dreams. Now he saw Alice was disparate, and close to death…all alone he looked at the girl who had been sucked into this world she never should of ever seen.

He told them everything about what happened the last week, between the deaths, the group and most of all Nancy.

He told Alice as much as he could about her, and the true story behind it all. He spoke of the dream powers and Joey's coma and how both of them went their own ways that faithful night to stop it all.

He told her about the car yard, and everything that had happened and afterwards. The trial, and how everything was lost.

Alice took in everything he told her, somehow knowing made her feel stronger as if maybe she could out smart whatever it was.

They both had lost everyone, and both shared the same fear.

Dr. Gordon felt so guilty he hadn't been there for them, and how so many had died and given up to see them go on. He understood where Alice was coming from.

He told her as much as he could but everything was so painful…here he was in hiding, so scared of the monster who had killed the kids he would of liked to call his own. He told them about what he had done with his remains and how over the past year he became more powerful wherever he was resting. Looking into her eyes he told her the last of what he knew about Freddy, counting Amanda and what had happened so many years ago.

Thinking about that sent chills through Alice.

"Why did he come back?"

"I guess the same reason for the past seven years or so…to finish the job he started."

"In killing all the children?"

"Yes, you see Freddy's only reason for coming back was to kill off the parent's children of who killed him in the first place, once that was over he no longer had the strength nor the energy to keep killing people out of his reach."

"So Joey was the last?"

"Yes…and the only way to get to these new kids is from you from Kristen's power…the more souls he gains the more powerful he will become and be able to break from whatever lock hold this is to only kill for revenge."

"How will he die?"

"I don't know Alice, there's no one left…and the more powerful he becomes the harder it will be to stop him."

Dr. Gordon slowly shook his head as Alice took another sip of her coffee.

"If he's still alive after killing the last of the elm street children, this means he gained powerful through you."

"Joey talked about a drug…Hypnocil."

Dr. Gordon looked at her.

"He told me what it did and how it was taken off the market since it was one of the main sources for being blamed against the teenagers…he told me you couldn't dream taking it.

Dr. Gordon explained that yes he did know and dealt with the drug, in fact that was the reason why Nancy hadn't dreamed of Freddy until she went back to Western Hills. He told her it was a dangerous drug…in fact Nancy and himself were blamed for the deaths and for giving the kids those drugs.

Thinking back he remembered how one of the nurses found Joey's chest cut up in his hospital bed right after Nancy had seen him. How could anyone ever blame such a sweet and beautiful angel like Nancy…she only wanted to help.

Alice told him that what Joey thought was maybe if she took them she would no longer dream, or dream of him…no one to dream, no one to bring him others, and soon he would grow weak without any force to bring or have the need to kill anymore.

Dr, Gordon agreed, the only reason Freddy could still come back was to kill the last of the Elm Street children, once all bloodlines were cut he only had Alice left…if she couldn't dream it would be over…right?

They talked together until early morning when Dr. Gordon gave Alice as much information as possible. He wrote down his number and told her to call him in case anything would happen.

Then he went to his closet and gave Debbie and her two huge boxes…they were filled with as much Hypnocyl as he could offer. He told the girls how to use the drug and if they didn't dream…it must have been over.

Saying their final goodbyes they drove back to Springwood and made a plan about the drugs. Stashing one box at Debbie's and the other in Alice's basement. They didn't know if it would work, but something about the doctor's eyes made Alice want to believe him.

And so Alice went into her bedroom that morning and looked at the bed sighing. She set up the photograph on her nightstand and took two pills.

And that night…she didn't dream.

Before shutting her eyes tears began to flow through them.

She wished she could just screw if all and fall asleep without any worries, but Joey wanted this, he wanted her to survive.

"Now I lay we down to sleep…"

"I pray the Lord my soul I keep…"

And so she slept.


	31. Time heals EVERYTHING!

The Hypnocyl had worked.

It had been a total of two months since Alice and Debbie started taking them. Since then there had been a lot of changes in Springwood.

Lt. Jarvis retried and now a man by the name of lopizzo had taken over the job. The town's people of Springwood seemed grateful about the whole thing and welcomed this man with open arms. Sheriff Anderson thought maybe the bad times were behind them, and there was only the future to look forward to.

The five deaths made very little waves in the entire community, rumors spread around and soon talk of something going on at Western Hills started to stir up towards the end of school year. A few people dropped by Alice's to see how she was doing, none of them really knowing what had happened between Joey and her with the police.

Debbie had been the one for her this entire time. They worked out a system together and tried their best to get through it, feeling as if it was happening to someone else. Alice finally put her foot down about her father's drinking problem. She told him both had lost Rick…but she couldn't keep going on like this if she didn't have a father helping her. They had talked and something were brought closer, he now went to his meetings twice a week and as far as Alice knew he was staying clean.

Alice really didn't want to think of the next year coming up. Being a senior shinned a very different light on her, soon talk of collage and trying to get through those ten months seemed like a nightmare on her own. Sure she had Debbie, but she still felt lonely even if she tried her best to start talking with a few other people she kept friendly through her classes this year.

The truth was she didn't even know what she wanted to do with her life now, back before she used to day dream of escaping one day and not becoming one of those losers who spent their entire life stuck in this small town watching their life waste away. No she used to dream for bigger and better things. Rick and Kristen would become famous and let her live with them out in the city. All of them together, like a family.

Her father understood how fragile things were going for her and tried to keep a close watch on her, knowing from what the doctor's said she suffered a nervous break down. Alice was a smart young lady, and it seemed as if every day she grew more and more beautiful.

She worked at the diner four nights a week, every of spare moment she had she was either tending to the house of hanging out with Debbie. They were survivors and they knew they only had each other. Alice had noticed Joey's parents around town from time to time, but the most they would do was smile a little, nod their head and walk in the opposite direction. It seemed as if just looking at Alice brought back the awful memories that they killed their only son for not believing him. Alice wasn't angry at them…she knew almost twenty years ago they had gone through a nightmare on their own and lost so much…and trying to protect their son in more ways then one, they ended up sending him to an early death.

How she thought of what that night must have been like back in the 1960's. The parents of Elm street banding together and going after Krueger, watching the flames flicker against their eyes and thinking to themselves that they were doing right, and saving what was left of this town.

She missed Joey, even if she really did get close to him for one night, she thought of it more of loving him the moment she laid eyes on him last year. Watching and dreaming of what it would be like to stand close to him. This awful never ending pain had brought them together and he had saved her. She still remembered every word and movement he made. How they slept together for the first time in her bed, and how in the dream he threw her to safety.

She wished she could dream just for one moment…and see him.

It was mid August now, and everything now seemed peaceful. Alice was working double shifts with Debbie one evening and both seemed to be able to brighten up each other moods. Even if they were the only ones left, it seemed as if it really did happen to someone else, and everyone counting Joey would come through those doors and everything would be okay. But she still kept in touch with Dr. Gordon, for a stranger she had only just met he seemed like one of the kindest people who would ever look out for her. Joey was right.

She tried to start day dreaming again since she couldn't do it at night, dream or think of Joey laying in bed with her laughing, or his cool brown eyes glazing at her as they kissed. Alice knew this wasn't normal and should have been thankful that she was still alive and no one else would die.

Walking with a fresh cup of coffee to serve Alice felt dizzy.

Trying to steady herself she looked around and felt cold sweat start to drip down her face. She couldn't breath.

Looking at Debbie who was flirting with one of the guys at the counter, her eyes rolled back in her head and feel dead cold to the ground.

"ALICE!"

Debbie screamed and ran over.


	32. Son of 100 Maniacs

For a few moments Alice thought she was walking somewhere that she had seen before, but never set foot around in her life. There were long corridors polished to a high gleam and orderlies and nurses pushing carts to other rooms. Alice kept walking forward as strong sunlight blazed in through the windows.

She then over heard talking, pausing for a second she stopped and looked in through a doorway.

Inside were a bunch of people all sitting in a circle. Three were adults, two she recognized. One was Dr. Sims, and the other Dr. Gordon. A lovely looking woman sat between them with wide sparking brown eyes and a kind face. It seemed as if there were talking but she couldn't hear the words escape their mouths.

There were so many kids…then she saw.

Kristen, Joey, and Kincaid.

They all looked a little different and much younger, all sitting around different spots in the room.

She watched them as everything played out in slow motion, then the sound came that made her heart freeze inside her chest.

The sound of claws scraping against metal pipes.

She stopped and heard them get louder when…

"Alice?"

Alice fluttered her eyes open and found herself laying in a hospital bed, confused and a little scared she sat up and felt dizzy. Debbie and her father were there, looking very worried. She saw a middle aged doctor holding her chart and standing at the foot of the bed.

"Take it easy hon, lay back."

Debbie helped her as she looked around the room.

"Where am I?"

"Your in the hospital Alice…do you remember getting here?"

Alice took a second and shook her head.

"No, I just remember feeling sick at work, what happened."

Debbie stroked the side of her face trying to calm her as the doctor glanced down at her charts and looked at her father.

"These sorts of weak spells aren't entirely uncommon. Many women have them in the first few weeks. Especially if their on their feet a lot."

Alice stopped.

"What?"

Debbie, the doctor, and her father all eyed each other. Alice then started getting scared as her heart raced in her chest.

"What's wrong…what's wrong with me?"

Debbie looked up at the other men biting down on her lower lip and looked Alice in the eyes. She could feel herself getting hysterical.

"Your pregnant Alice."

Alice sat there stunned.

"What?"

Debbie looked up at the doctor who cleared his throat.

"Just for routine observation I would like if you could spend the night, make sure you're as comfortable as possible."

Dr. Moore looked down at Alice, and gave an uneasy look before putting her chart under his arm.

"Mr. Johnson if you please, I would like to talk to you outside and let your daughter get some sleep."

Alice's father nodded and went over to her.

"I'll see you in the morning honey, get some rest."

Her father kissed her on the cheek, looking more worried then he ever did before and walked out with the doctor. She leaned against Debbie feeling empty.

Alice watched as Dr. Moore and her father walked out in the hallway. She watched through the window as they headed down the hall together.

"What he must think of me?"

Alice thought, knowing her father was trying to change for the best for the two of them, and here it was…something she wouldn't of even thought of before. Was he angry? Disappointed? Or just knew this would be something Alice would do…screw up. How could this of happened? No…she was to young, Joey was to…it only happened once, how could they of done this together? No it wasn't right…Joey was dead, it was all a lie.

Once they were alone, Debbie sat closer to Alice on the bed and used her hands to wipe away her thin stranded tears. Debbie really had no one to look out for her in life, and it seemed now Alice really was the one and only last friend she really felt close with. Both understood as unbelievable as it all were what was really happening. They were all that was left and they knew no one else would understand. They worked together as a team and looked out for one another…and treated each other like sisters.

Two whole months had past and it really did seem as if it were all over. As much as she really didn't want to trust this Dr. Gordon, she knew he really was keeping the two of them living supplying them with those pills. No one else had died and as painful as it was they started to slowly start to move on with their life's. If they didn't dream no one else would die.

What Alice just heard came as a great shock, no teenage girl ever wanted to year those two words. Looking at Alice she knew how fragile and unstable her mind was after she had lost everyone. Before she was just Rick's sister…the shy little day dreamer who stayed in the shadows and gave a weak smile every once in a while. Now after everything that had happened she noticed a great change in Alice. She was right after almost every death she had changed…both inside and out. She was getting stronger. Both were smart about taking these pills…at this point they were helpless and had no idea how to fight this thing. It seemed as if hiding was the only way. Alice had cared for Joey, sure they only really knew each other for a few weeks tops…but from all the stories she heard Joey had fought thing monster before, and seemed to be Alice's only hope. As much as Debbie thought about it she knew after everything that had happened Alice was now stuck almost in a frozen state.

She had lost everything and tried her best to keep herself from bringing anyone else to die. But now as terrified and weak as she seemed Debbie knew a million thoughts and fears would be rushing through her head. She was still a little girl…but at the same time stronger then anyone else.

"Joey…he's the father isn't he?"

Alice looked down at her hands ashamed.

"I only did it once…"

Debbie tried to smile and started rubbing her back.

"That's all it takes honey…when was it?"

Alice looked up, trying her best to hold back the tears as she remembered. She remembered that night as if it were yesterday. How scared she was, and how holding onto Joey was the only thing she could think of. Alice clutched to Debbie in a desperate embrace and began to sob.

"Before…before he died."

"Did you use anything?"

Alice shook her head.

"I didn't know…"

Debbie kissed Alice's head, knowing that at this exact moment she had really no idea on what was going to happen next. She wasn't even eighteen and pregnant. The father, a so called crazed teen who had been dead for almost two or so months now.

Crying Alice laid down beside Debbie, everything hitting her at once.

"Shhh…get some sleep."

It took Alice a while to really drift off, her stomach turning in and out of knots as she kept thinking of Joey, and how this had all happened to her. Thinking back she didn't know if this was all some dream, somehow the pills couldn't stop as she remembered thinking of Western Hills. Was it because she missed him so much?

With tears still on her face she slowly fell asleep with Debbie watching her.

Alice really didn't want to sleep…in fact that was the last thing she wanted to do just then, Tossing and turning the whole night anytime she felt close to opening her eyes the sick feeling of what she had been told kept hitting her. Finally when she did open her eyes she found it was early dawn. The hospital was peaceful and still almost sleeping itself, Debbie was gone now and she found herself laying in her bed all alone with fresh tears rolling down her face. Long shadows of hospital equipment seemed to be thrown off in different directions, making her feel very small.

It reminded her of those night she stayed up all night during the spring, scared but at the same time thankful she was awake to watch the beautiful sun rise as the blue and casted cool colored danced across the sky. Back when she felt as if she were the only person on the earth.

Blinking she wiped her tears again and then looked beside her bed.

There stood a boy, who looked around four or five.

Alice almost scared being caught off suspire like that she took a deep breath and looked at the small boy. She noticed he was frail, a pale sad sorrow filled face and wide sparking blue eyes, close to tears. Alice had no idea how he got here, almost startled…then seeing how small he was she looked him up and down feeling a little odd. Alice for no reason at all smiled a little, she liked little kids and knew most likely the boy had wandered off the children's wing and heard her crying in her sleep.

"Hello."

They gazed at each other for a moment.

"Hi…"

"My name is Jacob."

Alice smiled, somehow she felt funny just looking at him.

"Hi Jacob…I'm…"

"I'm sorry your sad."

Alice looked at him almost a little stunned.

"How did…"

"I'm sorry about everything that happened, but Debbie's right it's not anyone fault."

Alice looked at him, feeling more and more uneasy.

"Jacob shouldn't you be in your room?"

"It's lonely in there…"

Just then the thin sound of metal being scraped filled the room, Alice froze.

"Bye…"

She blinked and the boy walked out into the darkness of the doorway, disappearing out of thin air.

"Jacob wait!"

But he was gone…

The next day the nurse took her blood pressure and did a once check over. She saw Alice's dark circles under her eyes and gave a warm smile before letting her side off the table.

"Don't worry honey."

Alice smiled back a little and then was sent to Dr. Moore's office. Inside she felt sick and almost a little nervous. She had only met Dr. Moore once or twice in her life and today in the bright of day he seemed rather calm, as if he had his talk with a million other knocked up teens. The shock of it all really hadn't set in yet for Alice. But just the thought that she was pregnant with Joey's baby made her even sadder that he was really gone. And that fact that all of this had happened.

Dr. Moore checked her charts and sat on the desk trying his best to talk one on one with her. He understood she was a healthy young woman who only had some trouble a few months ago due to stress. During what he called "A very troubled time." He asked her if the boy who she was involved with was the only person she had intercourse with.

Alice nodded.

She explained that they had both slept together once, which was her first time and no they didn't use anything. Between all of the stress and everything she had no idea she was late, and did tell the doctor she had been feeling weak lately.

He asked if she was on any medication.

Alice paused.

"No…"

Dr. Moore told her she was all ready into the early weeks of her third month, he showed her some charts and gave her a tiny bag with papers she could read up on and vitamins she should be taking. He told her to keep off her feet and that he would like to go and see her early next month for another check up. They went over her options and Alice seemed almost delayed on every answer. She explained she was going to take a year off before deciding anything about her future anyways.

He told her she seemed fine now and was good to go home.

But now it was starting to sink in. She was pregnant…seventeen years old and pregnant. Had this really happened? Once, just once…how could she had been so stupid. And here she was sitting in the doctor's office going over charts and pretty much planning out her future as she still didn't even know how to feel towards all of this.

Joey the father? He had just been a kid himself, and whenever she thought back on him her heart started to ache. No…he couldn't of been, they were too young. She couldn't do this alone…she couldn't be a mother. It was too much.

But she put on an act and thanked the doctor before meeting her father in the waiting room. As sick and troubled as she felt built up inside her she somehow felt as if there were a light weight thrown off her after meeting that boy this morning.

What was his name again…Jacob?

She always liked that name.

She had asked the doctor about him and tried her best to describe him but Dr. Moore only shook his head…there wasn't any child by that name anywhere in this hospital, he knew it.

The car ride home was silent. They stopped off for burgers before heading home. She could see through her father's tried eyes he now had more things that he wanted to think about on his mind. When they got home they both sat down together, Alice didn't even want to look him in the face. As they ate together finally her father looked up at his sweet little girl. She had been through so much and it seemed as if she was growing more beautiful every day.

"That Crusel boy…he's the father isn't he?"

Alice looked up and him and slowly nodded.

"Yes…"

"Did he, well…did both of you…"

Alice nodded again.

"I'm sorry dad."

"He treated you good right, he didn't hurt you…it wasn't forced?"

"No…it wasn't."

Her father looked down at his hands.

"I knew the boy had some troubles, but I also knew you guys were very fond of each other, and I'm sorry about whatever happened."

Alice slowly nodded, all ready crying a little.

"But it's in the past…your going to be a mother now."

"Are you disappointed?"

Her father reached across and took one of her hands, making her look up. In a stern voice he let her know.

"No, no I'm not…"

He then smiled a little.

"I sure hope it's a boy…it would be nice to hear a boy playing in the house again."

Right away that old feeling filled the two of them. It really did seem as if Rick wasn't gone. Both with tears in their eyes leaned across from each other and hugged.

"I'm gonna make sure your taken care of okay?"

Alice smiled still crying.

"Okay."

That night as messed up and as worried as Alice was she watched her father off to one of his meetings and then went upstairs into her bedroom.

She looked over a few of the things in Dr. Moore's bag he had given her but really right now she didn't even want to think about it even if that was all that was on her mind. Looking at her reflection in the mirror she sighed and knew maybe it was meant to be.

Crawling into bed, the same bed where this baby was made she settled down and turned off her light. Going on her side she looked up at the china glass doll and photograph of Joey. God she wished he was here.

Shutting her eyes she feel asleep.

When she opened them again she found herself in the darkness of somewhere. No it wasn't her bedroom…something was dripping and she smelled mold and dirt. She was laying on a dirty floor. Gathering herself up and stood and saw she was on some sort of balcony.

"95, 96...97."

She turned and saw two orderlies standing a few feet away from her with charts in their hands. Stunned she looked down at and gasped at the horror of what she saw.

Down in the huge room was what seemed like thousands of men, all insane and stumbling around in masses. Right away Alice knew what this was, the stories she read and heard from Dr. Gordon. This was Western Hills back in the 1940's…this was where Amanda Krueger was raped by 100 maniacs.

"97, 98..."

"Come on that's enough…"

"Hey you'll make me lose the count."

"It's 100, come on."

Both orderlies rolled their eyes and then walked through the large metal door and shut it behind them, the sound filled the room and Alice jumped.

"NO WAIT!"

She looked down and saw her, the woman she had read so much about.

Around Alice's age she stood there dressed in white, in the middle of the sea of men.

Both locked eyes for a moment before silence filled the room. The men started to surround her. Alice watched on with horror, not knowing what to do.

The young nun looked terrified.

"Please no…"

Then a man stepped out from the others. He seemed to be in his early 20's or so, white shirt and dirty black pants. His hair was a mess and he cracked his neck.

"I don't think you remember me…Harper, remember?"

He brushed his hand against her cheek and she all ready started to shake.

All of them men got close and closer as the men then started to lick Amanda's face as she started to cry and be held. Alice leaned for the railing, watching in horror as the man named Harper punched Amanda flat to the ground and went down to her.

"STOP!"

Alice tried screaming, but it was no use, she watched as Harper had four men hold apart her legs and arms above her head as he undid his belt and rose up her white robe. Right away he got on her and Amanda started to scream.

"NO!"

Alice was frantic, and tried her best to get down there, but the stairs were sealed off, screaming she watched as Amanda began getting raped as the other maniacs laughed.

"Please it hurts…"

But it was no use, Harper started pumping into her at a high speed, resting her face against hers and laughing as he buried his seed, which would grow up to be Freddy deep inside her. After a few moments he finished, spit and sweat dripping off him and he rolled off as Amanda huddled into a small ball.

Pulling up his pants he laughed and then looked up at Alice and smiled.

"NO!"

Alice snapped awake and found herself in her bedroom…it was early morning."

Breathing heavy she tossed her covers to the side and grabbed her pair of sneakers before rushing downstairs.

A little before seven she met Debbie at the diner for breakfast. They still had a lot to talk about but something about what happened last night sent chills down her spine.

"It was his mother, I saw everything…"

The images kept playing in her mind, she felt sick to her stomach.

"I thought you couldn't dream…doesn't the pills stop that?"

"That's what I thought."

"Hey I haven't had any…I bet it's just stress, I mean you have been through a lot and have some things on your mind."

Alice looked up at her, and could tell she was trying her best.

"But it seemed so real…"

"Hey if you have any more problems go see Dr. Gordon, anyways you need to see if the pills are all right for the baby."

Alice hadn't thought of that…but she couldn't give up the pills, someone else might die. Thinking back on whatever she dreamed or thought of last night she remembered Alice's screams as she was raped by what would have been Freddy's father.

"Don't worry, I'm sure everything is going to be fine…anyways you must be excited."

"For what?"

"The baby…right?"

Alice looked down at her breakfast and sighed, she did have a lot on her mind and this just added to it. She needed to see Dr. Gordon and make sure these weren't dreams she was having…and Jacob, who was he?

Thinking of Joey again she knew she had to take care of herself, but at the same time didn't know how to feel towards it.


	33. Opening the locked door

It had been a month since Alice had discovered that she was pregnant . It was now mid August and she was at the first few weeks in her forth month. There was still a lot of think of, and still she felt uneasy and almost still stunned hearing it out loud.

She was pregnant.

Joey's parents found out through her father when they heard that Alice had fainted in the diner. He had asked Alice before about how she felt about telling them and Alice agreed that Joey was their son and they had a right to know. Sitting them down to lunch she could see the past couple of months had been rough of them, and she had heard that they were thinking about moving away much like Kristen's mother had this spring.

As nervous as she was her father sat beside her and squeezed her hand as she told them in a calm steady voice that Joey and her had slept together, and she had just discovered that she was pregnant. Their first reactions were pure shock, which she knew was normal…then Joey's mother filled with tears and she got up to hug Alice.

It was a stiff hug and Alice's father could see the look on her face as she did so. But right away a million questions came between the two and both seemed misty eyed that this had happened. Alice hated to be the center of attention but she told them what her plans were, or at least what she had repeated to everyone else.

She was planning on keeping it and holding off school. Soon they pretty much went after her with more questions, begging her to take them with during her doctor appointments and such. Soon things like "Well what are you planning to do after the baby is born?" or "Are you going to still live in Springwood?"

Alice gave as many answers as she could, but she told them the honest truth. This came as a shock but she was planning to do whatever was best for her child.

Her child…it still sounded strange.

Joey's mother kept crying and laughing, telling her husband that this was God's gift to them from Joey, and how she never knew at this age she would be a grandmother.

As her father and Joey's went out on the porch to talk for a while she sat in the living room with Jan, who she insisted be called now, and kept going over how she was feeling, if she was going to take any classes for the birth, had she seen the doctor yet.

It was all so much to think of.

Jan told her she would like to see her at least twice a month, making sure she had everything she needed. When they said their goodbyes Alice and her father looked thankful it was over.

They had talked about the baby and Alice said she was going to keep it and raise it in Springwood. Maybe after a year she would take night classes. Her father understood and told her she wouldn't have to worry…they would be a family again.

She had talked to Dr. Gordon on the phone for a brief time since he was going out of town for a while. He seemed really shocked but at the same time happy about the news. As amazing as it seemed he told her once he got back in a few weeks he would love to see her.

She asked about the pills and dreams and he said as simple as it were, no the pills couldn't hurt the baby. And no she hadn't of been dreaming, it was just everything that was going on. If she didn't dream of him, he couldn't come back.

A few other people knew and seemed happy about it, putting aside the history of everything and her age. But she knew there must have been talk behind her back about Joey being the father, and the way he had died shortly after being held up by the police.

Alice felt crazy being stuck in the house all the time, so Debbie for the summer tried spending time with her and getting her happy about the idea of the baby. They bought books and tried to talk about things. As worried and as messed up as it all were it seemed with every single day that the baby grew inside her it really sunk in that she was going to be a mother, and it was Joeys.

She knew she was lucky.

One morning she woke up with her new rounds of morning sickness, and told her father she was going into town for a while. Taking the car she drove to the cemetery and visited her friend's graves.

Kristen and Shelia…like sisters. And then her brother…looking down at his grave she knew he would of loved to have been an uncle.

With a steady breeze blowing by she walked to a grave she hadn't been to in a while.

Standing there she read the dates and shook her head. He had been so young. Pressing her fingers up against the stone and holding back tears she told him that they were going to have a baby together, and how much she wished he was here to see it.

When she returned home she stared at herself in her mirror, she was starting to show now and the doctor said within a month or so she could start feeling it move. Amazed and stunned and held up her shirt and looked at her stomach before rubbing it and smiling. This baby was really going to be the best thing to happen to her. Sure she was scared, but it was too important to mess up.

Feeling tried as she always did at this time of the day she feel asleep.

Waking up she knew the same old feeling, she was inside a dirty dark room…getting up from an old dusty couch she brushed herself off and found she was in the Elm street house.

Looking around the place gave her the shivers. That girl…Nancy had lived here.

Getting up she noticed something, Jacob, he was standing right there. Slowly going towards him she saw how pale he was, just looking out the window and into the moonlight.

"Jacob?"

"Oh…hello."

"Jacob, you don't look very well…are you feeling all right?"

"Been having bad dreams."

Alice paused and looked around the darkened room.

"Is this were you live?"

Jacob slowly shook his head.

"No…just waiting."

"For what?"

"For you to kill me…he said you'll never do it."

"What?"

Jacob looked at her, all ready tears forming in his eyes.

"You feel guilty, but it's the only way to really make this all stop…you first need to release his power, then stop the bloodline so he can never come back."

"Jacob what are you taking about?"

"Why don't you really love me, I know I wasn't supposed to happen, but are you really going to kill me?"

"Jacob who said…"

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I've caused you, but it's the only way."

"Jacob…why would…"

"Do you miss him?"

Alice stood back.

"Who?"

"Daddy…I miss him."

"What?"

"He's with the others suffering, you need to let them go."

"Who?"

"I can feel daddy and the others' pain…their so sad."

Jacob looked down at the floor as silent tears rolled down his face.

"Come on honey we're getting out of here…"

Taking his hand she rushed to the darkened doorway leading out to the hall when…

He stood right in front of them, flashing his claw, Alice screamed and stepped back with Jacob.

It was so dark you could only see shadows of his awful face as he grinned.

Alice shook her head as she held Jacob, protecting him.

No…"

He kept laughing.

"I shut the door on you!"

Just then in a flash he came up behind her and felt her stomach with his awful claw hand.

"But I found the key!"

Screaming Alice woke up. She was in her bedroom…shaking and covered with sweat she knew what was happening, grabbing her phone she dialed.

"Debbie please help he's going after my baby!"

An hour later Debbie drove her to go see Dr. Moore, she was frantic the whole ride. Before going inside the building Debbie made her tell what happened.

"But it can't be…your taking the pills."

"He's going in through my baby I know it, he's using him and he fucking wants him!"

Debbie held her by the shoulders as she cried.

"Come on you need to calm down."

"No, he's after Jacob…I need to stop him."

"Wait, Jacob…who's that?"

"My baby."

"You all ready named it?"

Alice paused and thought.

"Yeah I guess I did…come on we need to go."

A little while later Debbie and Alice were both shown to a room. Dr. Moore came in asking what was wrong and Alice tried her best to play it calm, telling him she was just worried about her baby. Doing an ultra sound Alice was forced to lay back as Dr. Moore fixed the screen.

"Doctor…can unborn babies dream?"

"Developing fetuses can spend up to seventy-percent of their day in what we call a dream state…more as they mature."

"Will I be able to sense them?"

Dr. Moore looked at Alice.

"That's not why you're here is it?"

Alice tried to fake another smile.

"We're here to find out everything we can aren't we…I'm just worried about my baby."

Dr. Moore sighed and within a few moments the screen lit up and he pointed out her baby. Alice was speechless, she had never seen anything more beautiful in her life. Debbie bent near her smiling and pointing.

"There's your baby…"

Alice smiled watching it, but only a few minutes later she woke up screaming that "He was trying to get her baby!" Debbie tried to calm her down along with Dr. Moore but she wouldn't stop shaking. Debbie knew what had happened…she had fallen asleep for a few moments on the table.

Telling the doctor she was just worked up they left the hospital in a hurry as Dr. More eyed the screen and made a few phone calls…the way that girl acted wasn't normal.

Once they reached Alice's home she couldn't stop shaking, sitting up in her room she told Debbie that she had seen the inside where were baby was growing, and how Freddy was there using him to get through. She knew he was either trying to take the baby or using it to bring more souls. Scared out of her mind she knew she was going to have to see Dr. Gordon right away.

Snatching her keys Debbie looked at her.

"If you think it's the baby he's getting through to…then did you ever think, no baby, no baby's dreams?"

Alice froze.

She had never thought of that before. An abortion?

She looked at Debbie and shook her head. She had seen her baby, she needed to protect it. Jacob, or whatever it was now was growing inside of her, part of her and Joey put together…she couldn't do that to Joey, that was the only part of him left on his earth.

"I can't, it's my last link to Joey, I couldn't do that to him…I want it."

Debbie understood and told her that she would help. But Alice told her she needed to see Dr. Gordon alone. Heading downstairs both girls stopped and saw the Crusel's both sitting at the kitchen table with her father, all looking worried.

"Oh hi."

Mrs. Crusel tried her best to smile, she had been pretty supportive this last month for Alice. But she could still see the strain of Joey's death deep inside her eyes.

"Alice, my husband and I wanted to see how you were feeling." "Please come and sit down."

Alice hesitated and right away knew something was wrong.

Right away her father saw the look in her eyes.

"Look this isn't really a good time, maybe if you could come back."

But Mrs. Crusel cut him off.

"Frankly dear we wondered what you intend to do with our baby?"

Alice was stunned, she thought she had gone over this a million times with those two…also "Their baby?"

"What?"

They looked at each other, shifting in their chairs.

"We're concerned that this all might be a little too much for you…I mean being single and well everything…"

Joey's mother looked at her husband shaking her head.

"What Rodger means is we're aware of the burden that raising a child would place you…we're offering to help, adopt it and raise it as though it were our own."

Alice looked at the adults with Debbie close behind her.

"Look, I appreciate what you're offering but no, he's my responsibility."

She saw Jan was getting worked up.

"And ours, it's your grandchild…"

Right away Joey's father looked as uncomfortable as he could be, trying to cut her off.

"Look Jan maybe this wasn't…

"In your present condition Alice we're worried about your ability."

"What are you walking about…my condition?"

"We had a call from Dr. Moore, he said Alice was hysterical and that she had been having paranoid delusions."

"You don't understand…"

"We know you've been through a lot but there's more then your feelings at stake here."

"Your not taking my baby!"

Biting her lip Joey's mother looked up at her.

"The courts may not agree with you."

Then her father stepped forward.

"But I do, I've heard enough of this crap…you think you can just walk into my house and start threatening my daughter?"

Alice couldn't stay here any longer, she pushed past Debbie and ran outside towards her car. Right away she started her engine and headed towards Dr. Gordon.


	34. Let them out!

"Now I lay we down to sleep, the master of dreams my soul I keep."

Alice had never felt so much in a hurry in her entire life. She jumped into her father's station wagon and drove as fast as she could down the state highway. Nervous she pressed the metal further down to the floor as she began feeling as if she was on the verge of a panic attack.

Why was this happening?

Jacob, was it really her baby?

She remembered one second in the doctor's office she was looking at the screen, transfixed at seeing that little thing growing inside her. The next she was inside someplace, warm and dim. There she saw her baby…inside her. Amazed she just stared at it, never knowing how much one person could love something so much. It wasn't just a child…it was her child, it was Joey's child.

Then he came…

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

She remembered screaming before waking up. He had found a new way, and now he wanted to hurt her baby.

Thinking back on what Joey's parents were saying scared her. How could they think she was unstable? Yes she understood no one was able to grasp on what had really happened. But why didn't she just scream it, tell them that the guy they torched had killed everyone counting their own son and was now after his unborn child. Didn't they know? Part of Alice knew they did, and that's what scared them.

She then felt something, weird and almost deep inside her. Could her baby be kicking all ready. Taking one hand off the wheel she held her stomach and told her baby that she wasn't going to let anyone hurt him.

A few hours later she arrived at Dr. Gordon's while it was still light. In a frantic hurry she darted into his small apartment and started talking a mile a minute. She told him everything, and how she knew Freddy was after her baby.

Dr. Gordon calmed her down, before sitting across from her and rubbing his very tried and worn face.

He told her the pills would of made her stop dreaming for sure, which seemed to be their plan since they both knew if Alice could no longer dream…she couldn't pull anyone else in.

No one left to die, no souls, no souls meant Freddy would grow weak again and it would become harder and harder for him to return.

Dr. Gordon said he was afraid of this the second he heard about Alice's pregnancy. He said that Freddy's only reason for coming back was to kill the last of the Elm street children. Once he was finished that all ties were cut off and he only had Alice to use to bring more children out of his reach. Once she didn't dream anymore he was stuck in a void, until…Alice became pregnant.

All bloodlines had to be cut. That's all none of the Elm Street children had any more brothers or sisters…because Krueger had killed them all twenty or so years ago.

All were too young to have children, until Joey was the last to die. The blood line hadn't been broken, now the last of the children had now conceived a child, and with that Freddy wouldn't just kill…but use as he did with Alice to bring more children.

As long as that child would be alive, Freddy would gain more power until he wouldn't be stopped anymore, and maybe break out of the dreams and into their world at last.

Alice couldn't believe what she was hearing.

"He'll keep on coming as long as he has powers, which are the souls he keeps…but even once those are gone he'll still have the child to go through."

Alice felt herself shake as Dr. Gordon came closer.

"The only way to stop this is to release the souls…and then…"

Alice blinked.

"What?"

He just looked at her.

"You don't mean…kill my baby?"

She put her hand over her stomach shaking her head.

Dr. Gordon looked ashamed and shook his head.

"Alice the blood lines must be cut once and for all, no matter how many times or ways people try to stop him he'll still have a link to work through."

"I'm not hurting Joey's baby…you can forget about that."

"Alice, more people will die…please understand…"

But Alice couldn't. Standing up and grabbed her bag and tuned out his calls after her as she darted out the door and back to her car which was parked on the street. Crying she fumbled with her keys and now knew she was alone. She was the only one fighting for this to end, and she was the only one who could stop it.

Driving back home she seemed in a hurry, somehow now she knew.

Parking the car she saw her father's was missing, most likely at his meetings. Relived she ran upstairs and started to get ready.

"It ends tonight."

Pulling on the jeans and grabbed a rather tight gray button up blouse she used to wear all the time before she developed breasts. She offered to give it to Kristen but Kristen told her that it made her look sexy and should once and a while open up and dress a little to show some skin. Smiling for a second she remembered the those happy memories. They were friends and family. Now all of this was shattered, it was no longer time to live in the shadow of anyone else, she had to fight, and she had to fight now.

She ran to her closet and took out an old brown leather jacket she bought at a thrift shop a year or so ago, pulling it on she took out an old belt she had and stung it on before grabbing Rick's bandana and trying it tightly around her hand. Flexing her fingers. Next to strung more jewels around her ankles and then slapped on Debbie's spike bracelet she gave to her a few months ago.

Tying her hair back she cleared everything off her dresser and now stared at her stronger and new reflection. Here she was, a warrior, a survivor, a mother, and a fighter. She had to fight for her loved ones, and the child she carried inside her. Looking she stood back and smiled, she had finally changed, and now it was time to fight.

Taking the glass doll off her dresser she prayed to herself and then saw the glass start to slowly move and shift as her eyes played tricks on her. With a final breath she threw the doll with all her might against the glass making it shatter into a million pieces. Then she ran and jumped through it.

Within seconds she was flying through the darkness and then through a stain glass window, with a heavy fall she found herself in a church.

She was in the dream.

Looking around at all the empty seats and sad looking statues she thought of Amanda with a sigh and then saw children up on one of the balcony singing.

"One two Freddy's coming for you…"

With a strong gust of wind the main doors flung open and Freddy stood there. This was it, now the face off had began.

Smiling he stepped forward.

"Welcome to wonderland Alice!"

Alice sharpen her eyes at him and started forward. Both started at the same time. Krueger snapped out his claws as Alice did a quick cartwheel and darted out of the way before flipping and kicking him in the ribs. She felt stronger now as life buzzed through her body like a drug. Freddy started towards her again but she flipped over him, missing the claws by a few inches.

Both circled each other like animals before he started again, this time she used her hand and punched him again, and again, and again before kicking him flat to the ground.

"You got their powers, I got their souls!"

Trying to run behind her she darted under his legs with lighten speed and flipped around before punching him again with another drop kick.

"Come on!"

Smiling he started again and this time did get her arm with the end of his claws, tearing into her leather jacket she cried for a second and then jumped again and kicked him.

"This is for Kristen!"

She kicked him

"This is for Shelia!"

She kicked him

"This is for Rick!"

Kicking him again he started to stumble.

"This is for Joey!"

She then raised her foot.

"And this is for touching my baby you bastard!"

He then fell to the ground as she spun around with her hands ready to fight.

Picking himself up he came closer and then with a flick of the arm she felt herself get picked up, legs kicking and flung with all his might across the church. Smashing into another sheet of glass she fell to the floor bloody and bruised. Aching all over she slowly picked herself up with her lip now split open.

Freddy walked over as she leaned against the wall looking up at him.

"He's mine bitch, and there's nothing you can do about it, I am internal!"

"NOOOOO!"

Screaming all the windows shattered and along with the other stain glass it showered down on her as she made tiny fists and looked up at him.

Then it caught her eye as light danced across it, just then Freddy started to raise his claw.

"Now I lay me down to sleep, the master of dreams my soul I keep…"

Picking up a large shard of broken glass she saw her reflection, broken but not dead yet. Looking at her now wide blue eyes she remembered.

"With the reflection by my side…"

She then looked up at him.

"Evil shall see itself, and IT SHALL DIE!'

Snapping up she showed Freddy the mirror, right away his dark eyes widened and he screamed, the entire church shook as she heard millions of painful screams blast through the air.

Freddy feel against the wall as she stood there watching. His chest and body started to slowly move as the cries grew louder and louder.

Then there was movement…

Right away hands through his burned flesh busted through his red and green sweater and locked him down against the wall as he began to scream in pain. His sweater tore open and then she saw it.

Millions of souls, all children or teenagers he had killed were now getting payback, they wanted freedom and the more she heard their cries, the more angry she became.

"LET THEM OUT!"

She saw painful faces press up against his skin, reaching out with arms before they started to slowly rip through. Krueger gave one final scream before his entire body burst open and she saw the most beautiful thing in the world happen.

Millions of souls, some of her friends in a beautiful glowing light floated up into the air towards the broken window which lead out to the star lit sky.

Hearing all their happy voices telling her thank you she saw Kincaid, Kristen, Nancy, Glen. Tina, Rod, Will, Rick, Phillip, Jennifer, Grady, Taryn, Shelia, and the rest all drift up to the sky laughing as they went to heaven.

Goodbye…

She heard them saw, smiling she watched them leave and now knew they were safe and happy now. There would be no more suffering.

Feeling lonely she looked out the window one last time before seeing the claw and empty sweater. Kicking it aside she smiled again.

"Rest in hell."

Feeling now alone she started towards the door when she heard a child's voice.

"Mamma!"

Alice turned and saw Jacob, tears filling in her eyes she never thought she was so happy to see him, running she picked him up and squeezed him with all her might before kissing his face.

"Let me see you…"

With tears of joy she sniffled away and brushed back his hair before gazing at him.

"We did it honey, it's over, no one is going to hurt you."

Jacob looked at her with a rather sad face, right away she knew something was wrong.

"Jacob, what's wrong."

"It's not over yet…you still need to finish this."

"What do you mean?"

He pointed to himself.

"Me, I can't live."

"No Jacob, don't say that your wrong…"

"As long as I'm alive he'll keep coming back…see…"

Alice looked down and saw all ready Freddy's claw had moved places.

"He's really weak now and it will take a while, but he'll come back as long as I'm alive."

"No!" "No Jacob, I'm not letting anyone touch you, do you understand?"

Jacob slowly shook his head.

"It has to be done mamma, I'm sorry…"

Letting him down Alice kept fighting back the tears before she heard something. Looking up she saw an entire wall made out of glass, there stood Joey behind it, looking the same that he did when she left him.

Shocked she just stared before slowly walking over in a trance, it was him…it was really him. Going up to the glass she pressed her hand against it and he smiled and did the same on the other side.

They kept looking at each other.

Amanda then started to cry.

"Boy am I glad to see you…"

Crying, Joey on the other side smiled and didn't say a word. Alice cleared her tears and looked at him again, wishing she could touch him. She had a million things to say at this moment but stayed silent.

Joey then looked over her shoulder and pointed, Alice turned and looked gasping.

Jacob was no longer there, but a new born baby…yes it was Jacob, but as he would look when he was first born. Going over slowly she picked up the baby and held it in her arms. Laughing she touched one of the baby's chubby cheeks as it giggled and went over to Joey, showing him through the glass.

"Please don't make me give him up Joey, he's beautiful…he's ours."

Joey pressed his hands against the glass, transfixed on his son, eyes filling with tears he looked up and smiled to Alice, almost amazed at what they had both made.

Alice smiled holding the baby before Joey looked at her and slowly nodded and lipped the words.

"Finish it."

Looking at him she felt her heart break and now understood, looking back at her baby she smiled once last time before looking back at the wall.

Joey was gone, looking up at the sky she saw the very last glowing life pass through the window into the star lit sky.

Joey was free now.

Feeling a chill she slowly shut her eyes and made herself wake up.


	35. It has to stop

When Alice woke it was still dark. Opening her eyes she found herself on her bed. With her window open a late summer breeze blew in and she looked over and saw her mirror hadn't been broken, and the glass doll still sat on her night stand.

Slowly sitting up she looked at the photograph of Kristen, Joey, and Kincaid and sighed. She had released them, but she knew it wouldn't be over until she really did finish it.

Losing her friends, brother, and the one boy she knew she would ever love she didn't know if she could handle losing a child. Between this time Jacob had become everything to her and she wanted to protect him. Seeing him, and watching him grow made her heart ache as she thought of killing her unborn baby. The last thing she had of both Joey and her from one night together. Rubbing her arms she started to cry. Going back and forth she held her stomach she felt as if she couldn't go through with it.

But she knew…it was the only way to stop.

Shaking and almost in a daze she didn't think and after twenty or so minutes she found herself in her bathroom. Redressed in a nightgown she no longer felt like a warrior, or someone who had released all those souls, now she felt like murdered.

Why was this the only way?

She didn't know what to do, but sitting on the edge of her bathtub she held herself rocking back and forth and crying, praying to God for someone to help her.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

Taking the kitting needle she used which she stored under her bed fresh tears ran down her face as she positioned herself and started to breakdown.

Exactly eleven minutes later Debbie arrived at Alice's checking if she was home or not. She had phoned Dr. Gordon and knew she must have been a wreck now. Seeing her car she tried the door and found it unlocked.

Knocking she called out before stepping inside the darkness of the house and walked upstairs.

"Alice?""

She entered her bedroom when she saw the bathroom door open a crack, walking forward she called out again.

"Alice it's me Debbie…"

Pushing the door open she tried but found it stuck, something was blocking it from behind. Twisting the doorknob she started to panic.

"Alice?" "Alice it's me Debbie let me in…"

She pushed against the door and with all with all weight shoved herself in. Once inside she screamed.

Alice was laying in a puddle of blood.

"ALICE!' Kneeling down in the blood she held her friend's pale face.

"Alice what did you do?"

Alice's eyelids which now looked a dark purple fluttered open and looked in a dazed state.

"I'm sorry Joey…I'm sorry I had to do it…"

Her eyes closed again and Debbie jumped up and rushed for her phone.

"Oh my God…"

Calling she felt herself shaking.

"Hello 911, I just found my friend bleeding on her bathroom floor, it looks as if she's tried to do an abortion and I think she's bleeding to death…yes, no I don't think so…three months, no….please hurry we're at 82 smith street."

Hanging up she rushed to Alice and held her face.

"Stay with me Alice, you need to stay with me."

Alice started to mumble.

"It's over…it's finally over…"

Once in the ambulance the sirens screamed, the paramedics worked around Alice and saw she was bleeding out. They had heard about this girl before, in fact Western Hills have called and a Dr. Sims had wanted to speak to her.

Right away her pressure dropped and she flat lined.

"She's down!"

As they started working on her Debbie sat back terrified.

But somewhere in a different dream world Alice watched as the two men started to close the door, she eyed Amanda who was standing on the ground level of all the men and started to scream.

"No wait!"

The door kept closing when…

Alice eyed Amanda's poor scared face when she screamed…

"NO!"

Right away the two men turned and saw Amanda.

"Jesus, she almost got locked in, go get her Joe!"

One of the men rushed down the metal stairs and grabbed Amanda's hand as they hurried up to the main door.

"You need to watch it lady, you don't want to get locked in do you."

Relived Amanda's young face shook her head as the three of them left, locking the door behind him. Alice then looked down at Harper, the young man who would of raped and impregnated Amanda. He looked up at the locked door and started to scream.

Then it hit Alice…if Freddy had never been conceived, then…

He wouldn't of been born, if he wouldn't of been born then none of this would of happened.

In a flash almost everything played backwards, showing life as it were in Springwood without Freddy Krueger. Alice saw friends and families all living out their life's safe and happy.

The elm street house wasn't wrecked, in fact she saw that woman named Nancy in the front yard with another young man…both were laughing as they showed their young daughter how to walk.

Then she found herself as everything in time froze standing beside her twin brother.

Everything had changed, nothing bad had happened ever.

Rick, her brother…he was still alive.

"Alice, earth to Alice…you spacing again?"

Alice snapped out of it and found herself in the high school parking-lot.

Looking at her brother she then saw Kristen walk over with a smile.

Kristen…she was alive.

Kristen smiled waking over.

"Alice I would like you to meet a friend of mine from class…Joey meet Alice."

Standing to the side Alice saw Joey, he had no idea who she was, or that they shared a child once together. Gasping she thought it was a dream…maybe it was, maybe she was dead and this was her heaven to start over.

Not wasting any more time on thinking about dreams she smiled as Joey looked down at his shoes, shy.

"Hi…"

Joey looked up and smiled back.

"Hi."

The End.


	36. Final chapter

Alice Johnson - Lisa Wilcox

Joey Crusel - Rodney Eastman

Kristen Parker- Tuesday Knight/ Patricia Arquette

Debbie Stevens - Brooke Theiss

Shelia - Toy Newkirk

Elaine Parker - Brooke Bundy

Mrs. Crusel - Jacquelyn Masche

Roland Kincaid - Ken Sagoes

Rick Johnson - Andras Jones

Mr. Johnson. - Nicholas Mele

Mr. Crusel - Burr DeBenning

Dr. Gordon - Craig Wasson

Dr. Moore - Steven Grives

Freddy Krueger - Robert Englund

Amanda Krueger - Beatrice Boepple

Harper - Giuseppe Andrews

Jacob J. Crusel - Whit Hertford

Dr. Sims - Priscilla Pointer

and

Anderson - Bruce Abbott

It's always a thrill to finish a story, and reach this point where I get to shout out to my reviewers and be able to look back and hope that some of this fan fiction was fun to read and be enjoyed.

First I would like to apologize to my readers for my silly spelling and grammar mistakes. English has never been my strong point and with a learning disability when it comes to that I try my best to fix the problems and make up for it with the plot's flow.

Second I would like to tell how I came up with the idea of this story. I guess it all comes down to being a fan of the series or many years and being able to look back on every film and see it's high points and flaws. Between Dream Warriors and The Dream Master I saw it wasn't just any other sequel to a slasher film. It had story and amazing effects. Once The Dream Child happened my view towards Freddy was shattered. I always thought part 4 was a perfect send off towards the series and maybe make New Nightmare ten years afterwards. I'm sorry but parts 5 and 6 didn't do it for it and I think it just started being all about making the money instead of making good film.

Loving The Dream Warriors, I think that might have been one of the many reasons part 4 did so well. Everyone wanted to know how they were doing. I always thought killing them off so quickly was a shame, so I came up with the idea of putting one of the warriors together with the dream master. Sticking to the basic plot but throwing in a shattered love story and a link to the dream child without showing too much. I think it was all about showing Alice and Joey fight side by side and the choices they had to make together.

I feel better that I finally got around to doing a fan fiction about one of these films and I hope for the people who read it they liked the twists and turns I made in the chapters and liked showing more light on the characters of both Joey and Alice.

My last project which was a squeal to one of my biggest pieces of work didn't do that well review wise. So messing around with things I finally came up with the plot for this story. I feel I covered almost everything that should have been shown and show the strength Alice gained over time.

I you have any questions please ask them in reviews and I'll be more then happy to post them. As of right now I'm taking a break from writing for a while, but this was fun and I hope I'll be able to maybe see more stories much like this one (There isn't any stories with Joey, can you believe it?" Thank you again for reading my story.

Darkness Takes Over

xox annur xox

CaptainoftheGreenRiders

KellyDriscoll

And more who read it.

I'll be sure to keep reviewing any of your stories, you guys are amazing with your words.

Thank you again and I hope you all have a good rest of the summer.

Stay 7/30/06


End file.
